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Vv^HAT IS RELIGION? 

A PROTEST AGAINST 

"THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE." 

A PLEA FOR 

THE REALITY OF THE SPIRITUAL. 




Rev. Rf W.'MEMMINGER. 



'For the things which are seen are temporal; but the things 
which are not seen are eternal." 



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PHILADELPHIA: 
CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFFELFINGER, 

Nos. 819 & 821 MARKET STREET. 
1872. 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by 

CLAXTON, REMSEN & HAFFELFINGER, 

in the Office of the Libranan of Congress, at Washington, 



STEREOTYPED BY J. FAGAN & SON, PHILADELPHIA. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

INTRODUCTION v 



PART I. 

AN ANALYSIS. 

CHAPTER I. 
The Consciousness of God . ir 

CHAPTER II. 
Theism 23 

CHAPTER III. 
The Fear of God 40 

CHAPTER IV. 
Sacrifice . .50 



CHAPTER V. 



Prayer 



.77 

iii 



ft 



IV CONTENTS. 

PART II. 

A SYNTHESIS. 

CHAPTER I. 
The Moral Life 91 

CHAPTER II. 
The Religious Life 119 

CHAPTER III. 
The Divine Life 139 

PART IIL 
THE INSTRUMENTALITY. 

CHAPTER I. 
The Holy Scriptures 201 

CONCLUSION , 244 



INTRODUCTION. 



" 'TT^HE little light of awakened human intelligence shines 
X so mere a spark amid the abyss of the Unknown 
and Unknowable — seems so insufficient to do more than 
illuminate the imperfections that cannot be remedied, the 
aspirations that cannot be realized, of man's own nature. 
But in this sadness, this consciousness of the limitation of 
man, this sense of an open secret which he cannot pene- 
trate, lies the essence of all religion ; and the attempt to 
embody it in the forms furnished by the intellect is the 
origin of the higher theologies. ... If the religion of the 
present differs from that of the past, it is because the theol- 
ogy of the present has become more scientific than that of 
the past ; because it has not only renounced idols of wood 
and idols of stone, but begins to see the necessity of breaking 
in pieces the idols built up of books and traditions and fine- 
spun ecclesiastical cobwebs ; and of cherishing the noblest 
and most human of man's emotions, by worship 'of the 
most part of the silent sort,' at the altar of the Unknown 
and Unknowable." (Huxley's Lay Sermons.) 

Such is the view taken of religion by one of the leading 
scientific minds of the day. It is the natural result of an 
idolatry of physical science. There are but three objects 
which man can know — God, Nature, and Self. It is pos- 
sible that the attention should be so exclusively directed to 
any one of these objects, that the others should be entirely 
lost sight of. In the present age, the thinking mind of the 



VI INTRODUCTION. 

public is almost exclusively directed towards one of these 
objects, namely, nature. The knowledge of self, under all 
its aspects and in all its relations, is now almost entirely 
neglected. To devote one's attention to the study of this 
so-called incomprehensible subject, is thought to be but 
time thrown away. Ethics, metaphysics, psychology, as 
sciences, are by the public almost entirely ignored. There 
are perhaps a few thinking men who still continue to be 
interested in these subjects ; but their interest must be con- 
fined to themselves. Supposing they propound their views, 
it is almost impossible to get the ear and to awaken the in- 
terest of the public. Plato, the father of metaphysics, Soc- 
rates, of ethics, are forgotten ; Des Cartes is hardly known. 
It seems to be taken for granted now, that it is impossible 
to arrive at anything like the truth in these departments of 
knowledge. And yet, after all, they are the most impor- 
tant, and are those which relate to what most vitally con- 
cerns mankind. 

Consciousness is the basis, the condition of all knowl- 
edge. To know nature, we must read off the impressions 
which it makes upon our consciousness. This the scientists, 
who so exalt the study of nature, while they essay to throw 
contempt upon that which relates to self, should remember : 
we only know anything outside of us, because we are con- 
scious of it within. The appeal, then, to consciousness 
must in all cases be the final one. What we are conscious 
of as occurring within, we know as confidently as anything 
that occurs without. The internal facts revealed by con- 
sciousness are just as much matters of certainty as are those 
external facts about which scientists seem to feel so confi- 
dent. Now one of these facts which we find within is the 
consciousness of God, and this the scientist will generally 
allow. It is admitted in the oracular utterance of our text ; 
it is granted in the admission that there is any such thing 



INTRODUCTION. VU 

in the world as religion. But while the being of God is 
admitted, His nature is wholly misunderstood. An exclu- 
sive attention to one object has so engrossed and absorbed 
the mind of the scientist, that he is incapable of seeing any- 
thing else. He forgets that there is anything besides Nature, 
and thinks it the "all in all." And yet, being a religious 
creature, he cannot help at the same time feeling the neces- 
sity for a Deity, in whom he may gratify his religious in- 
stincts. To meet this demand, he deifies Nature, and wor- 
ships it. He stands awe-struck, solemnized, with uncov- 
ered head, in the presence of his Nature-god ; he is filled 
with sorrow because his God is to him, and must forever 
remain, unknown. The impossibility of ever arriving at a 
thorough knowledge of the vastness of Nature fills his soul 
with a sad melancholy; and this, we suppose, takes the 
place of what is known, in a truly religious experience, as 
sorrow for sin, or penitence. 

This worship of Nature is the religion of science. It is 
Pantheism. The personal God, as distinct from His works, 
has disappeared, and Nature is God, and God is Nature. 
God has, under such a scheme, ceased to be ; while He is 
acknowledged in words, he is denied in fact. Pantheism 
is Atheism ; and yet, while it deceives the soul, it satisfies 
many of its cravings — therefore its power and its fascina- 
tion. In order, then, to arrive at the truth, we propose 
entering upon an investigation of the subject : What is Re- 
ligion ? We propose answering this question. 

In the first place, then, we ground ourselves upon the 
basis of Consciousness. In opposition to the prevailing 
tendency of the times, we propose directing our attention 
to the internal rather than the external. Consciousness is 
the mirror into which we propose looking, and we will 
read off the internal facts of man's nature as we find them 
there reflected. 



Vlll INTRODUCTION. 

Here we stand on the ground of absolute certainty. 
What I am conscious of, I know to be a fact, inasmuch as 
I am conscious of it ; of this I am certain, more certain 
than of anything else in the world. I am certain of the 
existence of what I see without me, because I am conscious 
of seeing it ; and I am just as certain of what I see within 
me, more certain in fact, because what I see within, I see 
immediately, without any interposing medium of transmis- 
sion ; whereas, what I see without is made known to me 
through the transmission of the senses, and the senses may 
sometimes introduce wrong impressions into the mind. The 
facts of the internal consciousness are therefore inevitably 
certain; all that is required is the power to look within 
and to see one's self. The certainty .which arises from such 
a process is, of course, entirely personal ; it cannot be veri- 
fied, as in the external, by co-operative observation. The 
certainty of the facts of consciousness is not increased by 
combined testimony. This only lays the basis for a general- 
ization as to what are the elements of human nature, or the 
facts of the human consciousness. The observation, then, 
of the internal facts of consciousness by different individ- 
uals, serves as a basis for a psychological science ; upon 
them we can generalize, and so arrive at the elements and* 
laws of human nature. The certainty, however, in each 
individual case, as to his own personal observation, is in 
his own consciousness final ; it cannot be effected by the 
result of such generalization. 

In entering upon the investigation of the subject of Re- 
ligion, we must begin, then, with the Consciousness. Any 
fo7^m of religion is but a product, the result of certain forces 
which are to be found within human nature. The only way 
by which we can arrive at a knowledge of these forces is 
by appealing to the consciousness. These forces, then, 
will be found existing as facts or as elements in the human 



INTRODUCTION. IX 

consciousness. We will begin by making an analysis of 
those facts or elements contained in what may be called, 
specifically, **the religious consciousness," considering 
them in their organic connection with each other. Pass- 
ing from such an analysis, we will proceed to consider the 
subject synthetically. Different arrangements or combina- 
tions of these elements give rise to different forms of life. 
One such combination gives rise to what may be termed 
the Moral life, another to the Religious life ; and, again, a 
third to what we have termed the Divine life. Next we 
pass on to consider the instrumentality by means of which 
the facts of the religious consciousness are brought out — 
the instrumentality, therefore, by means of which human 
nature is regenerated and educated for a higher sphere of 
existence. And this will necessitate a notice of the danger 
we of this present age are in, of losing faith in that Divine 
instrumentality — the Holy Scriptures. Finally, we will 
conclude with a protest against the materialism of the age, 
with a plea for the reality of the facts of religion, and for 
Christianity as being *'the power of God unto salvation 
to every one that believeth. ' ' 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 



PART I.— AN ANALYSIS. 
CHAPTER I. 

THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF GOD. 

A CAREFUL analysis of the human consciousness gives 
us the following result : A consciousness of self — of 
the world — and of God. These three elements, taken 
together, go to make up the unity of the human conscious- 
ness. Each of these conditions has its own peculiar group 
of sciences, with their own proper methods of investiga- 
tion. All that pertains to metaphysical science belongs 
properly to the consciousness of self; its method being, in 
the first place, observation founded on introspection, and 
then induction and verification, landing us thus in the ulti- 
mate truths of metaphysical and psychological investigation. 

To the consciousness of the world pertain all the physi- 
cal sciences, its method being, as is well understood, in- 
duction. In this case, observation is founded, not upon 
introspection, as in the metaphysical, — but upon the 
report of the senses. The result of all physical inquiries 
belongs to, and in proportion to its thoroughness, so far, 
satisfies the demands of, man's consciousness of the world. 

All that belongs to what is termed religion is subject- 
matter peculiar to the consciousness of God. 

II 



12 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

A consciousness of the existence; of the reality of things 
lies at the basis of all knowledge ; without such a conviction 
it would be impossible to be interested in, or to be stimu- 
lated to the acquirement of any knowledge. Let a uni- 
versal skepticism but prevail, let the mind be in doubt as 
to the reality of self, or of the world, or of God, and, as a 
matter of course, it must be paralyzed. Doubt as to abso- 
lute reality and truth, is inactivity, mental stagnation, and 
death. Consciousness carries with it absolute certainty. 
I am absolutely certain that I am, because I am conscious 
of it. I know, or am certain, that there is something 
external to myself — that the whole world of nature is a 
reality, because I am conscious of it. In both cases, the 
consciousness is immediate and necessary, differing only 
in the modes of verification. In the former case, con- 
sciousness is verified by introspection, or, as Descartes 
would say, cogito ergo sum. In the latter case, the verifi- 
cation, though not so immediate, is just as satisfactory, 
being through the senses. 

Introspection, by itself, could never bring us to the in- 
tellectual fact of self-consciousness, nor could the report 
of the senses bring with it the consciousness of nature ; 
both of them must be preceded by an intellectual con- 
dition. 

Psychological observation and physical observation are 
simply the instrumentalities which, logically speaking, a 
previously existing mental status uses for its information and 
satisfaction. The knowledge of the / is in the first place 
limited and confused ; self-consciousness is not satisfied with 
such ignorance, but seeks a clear, extended, and entire 
knowledge of itself. Until this self-knowledge becomes 
complete, self-consciousness will not be satisfied. Not 
until I know myself as I am known by the Omniscient, will 
my yearnings be quenched. Socrates was the apostle of 



WHAT IS RELIGION? I3 

this department of knowledge. ''Know thyself," was the 
dictum of his philosophy, and must remain that of every 
true philosopher, until self-knowledge corresponds to the 
demands of self-consciousness. The same conditions are 
true of the state of a consciousness of the world. From 
the very first, by a necessity of his nature, man is conscious 
of the external ; but in the primary stages of his develop- 
ment, and in the corresponding rude stages of the historic 
development of the race, this knowledge is limited and con- 
fused. The senses are the means used by the reason for the 
increase and clearing up of this knowledge. The physical 
sciences apply themselves to this work, and as they extend 
their horizon, and take in all that can be known of nature, 
man's consciousness of the world becomes more clear and 
distinct, and if it were possible to gain a distinct knowledge 
of the whole physical creation, then, too, would the crav- 
ings of this consciousness become satisfied, and man would 
rest in the fulness of a complete knowledge of the whole of 
the physical creation. 

And now as to the consciousness of God. This, just as 
in the cases already considered, is an immediate, necessary 
condition of the soul. 

It is impossible for the human mind, unless maimed in 
some of its departments, to fail to find these three elements 
clearly defined. Man must necessarily feel conscious of his 
own existence, of the existence of the world, and of God. 
It is true that these elements may exist in different minds 
in different proportions. In some, self-consciousness may 
predominate ; and here we find the psychological and met- 
aphysical philosopher, — in fine, all the forms of egoism. 
In others the consciousness of the world may predominate ; 
this gives us the physical philosopher, and all those who 
live in and for the sensuous. And then, again, in a third 
class, the consciousness of God may predominate ; and this 



14 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

gives US the theologian, and all those who are properly 
termed religious. 

In order to a full and healthy intellectual development, 
not only should these three elements exist together, but 
also in proper proportions. Any exaggeration must neces- 
sarily bring with it intellectual unhealthiness. 

Now, just as in the other cases the knowledge correspond- 
ing to those mental states is, in the first place, limited and 
confused, so it is in this. 

The consciousness of God exists before any form of reli- 
gion. All these forms are but the products which a neces- 
sity of our nature brings forth. They are the forms with 
which the forces of man's nature, under the pressure of a 
consciousness, seek to satisfy themselves. 

At the basis, and as the basis of every form of religion, lies 
this principle, namely, the consciousness of God. The ques- 
tion is not whether there is such a being. That we know 
already. We are conscious of His being, just as we are of 
the world and of ourselves. No evidence is required to 
prove the facts of consciousness ; they are already proven 
by the very highest kind of evidence, nay, they are more 
than proven, they are known. We l^ow that we are, that 
there is a world, and we just as necessarily know that there 
is a God, — we are conscious of His being. It is this con- 
viction or consciousness that makes man susceptible of di- 
vine knowledge. By it the mind is opened to, and is anx- 
ious for further knowledge. Being conscious of a God, we 
are pressed to know more of Him, and this puts the soul 
into a state of activity, and, unless impeded, it proceeds to 
use all the means at its command to increase its knowledge 
on this subject. Under the influence of a state of con- 
sciousness, intuitively the soul knows and feels itself to be 
in the presence of, and in contact with the Infinite and the 
Eternal, and it feels after them, if haply it may find them. 



WHAT IS RELIGION? I5 

Under the pressure of a self-consciousness, and rendered 
susceptible of self-knowledge thereby, the soul seeks to 
know itself. Under the pressure of a consciousness of the 
world, man seeks to know nature ', and under the pressure of 
a consciousness of God, man seeks to know God. And in 
proportion to the fulness and truthfulness of his knowledge 
will be the grade and nature of his religion. The religion 
which has as its basis ignorance, and error as to the Divine 
Being, will be superstitious and degrading just in proportion 
as these ingredients enter its theology. The religion which 
has as the basis of its theology knowledge and truth will be 
accordingly elevated, and will, so far, satisfy the cravings of 
a divine consciousness. When, in answer to the inarticulate 
cravings of man's divine consciousness, there comes the full 
knowledge of God, then will these yearnings be satisfied, 
and, this consciousness being filled, will rest in a sense of 
beatific satisfaction. Under the influence of the conscious- 
ness of God, man feels himself in contact with a dread 
unknown. The oppressive sense of a dim, unknown, un- 
defined presence presses upon him; inarticulate longings 
agitate the soul, and man longs to, and then tries to fathom 
this dread unknown. We can be conscious of the presence 
and existence of something that we see not, nor hear, nor 
can understand ; and yet we feel and know that it is there — 
a reality. The consciousness of God, in all its stages of 
development, instinctively impels the mind to a formation 
of a complete and adequate conception of the object with 
which it is concerned. Evidently there are degrees in the 
development of this consciousness. In the individual there 
is a variation. At one period of life, in the same indi- 
vidual, there is a more vivid consciousness of God than at 
another, and then the individual is most religious, and most 
anxious to know Him. Again, one person is more religious 
than another ; that is to say, he is more sensitively con- 



l6 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

scious of his God. And finally, the race is at one time 
more religious than at another. At certain periods in the 
historic development of the race, the atmosphere becomes 
charged with religious electricity. Such periods are times 
y of great religious agitation : witness the Reformation, the 
rise and rapid progress of the mendicant orders in the Ro- 
man Church, Puritanism and Methodism in England, and 
various other seasons of religious revival. There may, too, 
be an intensifying of the religious consciousness, and yet 
the prevalence of great spiritual ignorance. Interest may 
be awakened without the means of satisfying it. Where 
this occurs in the individual, it makes him superstitious, or a 
bigot. In the race or people, it creates, generally, cruelty 
and persecution : witness Mohammedanism in the East ; in 
the West, the Crusades and the cruelties of the Inquisition. 
The object which corresponds to the consciousness of 
God, is God. Self and the world corresponding to their 
respective subjective states, are intelligible. And although 
the knowledge of these objects is, in the first place, limited 
and confused, still the mind has from the very first some 
definite conception of the object with which it is concerned. 
On the other hand, the conception which the mind forms 
of the object corresponding to the consciousness of God is 
not definite ; it is, as we have said, dim and undefined. 
Man feels himself in the presence of the Infinite, in contact 
with the Eternal ; and from the very nature of the case, 
because the object is infinite and eternal, therefore it is un- 
defined. To conceive of it exceeds the power of the im- 
agination, and man expresses his sense of this in reverence, 
awe, and in worship. It is this very awfulness of the thing 
with which man feels himself to be in contact that makes 
religion. Worship is only possible when its object is con- 
ceived of as infinite and eternal. There is an object ; it is 
undefined. Man is conscious of it, and, in the spirit of 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 1/ 

awe and reverence, he worships it. There is, then, a 
reality which man is conscious of as God, and which he 
seeks to know. 

The various forms of religion give us the different con- 
ceptions of God which man has aimed at. Such a concep- 
tion is at the basis of every form of religion, and gives us 
its theism. These, then, are the elements which go to 
make up the unity of any form of religion. First, there is 
a consciousness of God which renders man capable of reli- 
gion ; next, from this capacity, and under its pressure, there 
arises a conception of the Deity which is the theism of re- 
ligion, and lies at its basis. This conception, in its turn, 
under the pressure of a consciousness of the immediate 
contact of its subject with man, becomes the object of wor- 
ship, the highest form of which is prayer. And lastly, 
since in the formation of the theism of a religion it is im- 
possible to leave out the elements of man's moral nature. 
Since therefore the conception must and will include a 
moral character, it follows that religion will have in it a 
moral element. God cannot be conceived of, even under 
the light of nature, but as approving the right and as disap- 
proving of the wrong. Hence, then, along with the the- 
ism of every religion is a code of morality, as expressive 
of the will of God. Consciousness of the Deity makes the 
obligation of this law to be felt, and the breaking of it to 
be dreaded. And at this point it is that the cultus of a 
religion springs up. The moral law gives rise to it. Man 
feels and knows that he breaks that law ; he fears the Deity, 
and hence his efforts to propitiate Him. The cultus of a 
religion is to be found in the rite of sacrifice. Prayer 
is the inward worship of the soul ; sacrifice the outward. 
Both spring out of a consciousness of God. The one is 
the expression of weakness and dependence ; the other, 
of guilty fear. 

2* B 



l8 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

To be conscious of anything proves that it is ; we cannot 
be conscious of that which is not ; it is a contradiction of 
terms. Faith is the evidence of things unseen. To be 
conscious is to be certain, requires no proof, is complete in 
itself. And we can be just as conscious of the unseen, 
and, consequently, as certain of its existence as of the 
seen. I am conscious of nature through my senses ; but I 
am conscious of God through no medium, but immedi- 
ately. 

The contact of spirit with spirit is nearer and more im- 
mediate than that of spirit with matter. No medium is 
required ; contact is immediate ; spirit communes with 
spirit. The All-spirit, the Omnipresent, is therefore in 
immediate contact with every created spirit, and there is 
that in us which is conscious of this. The conception which 
we form of the Deity is a thing entirely distinct from His 
being. Of His being we are conscious; of our concep- 
tion of Him we are conscious only that we have it, that it 
is our idea of Him ; and therefore, though certain of it as 
existing in us, we are not certain of it as belonging to Him. 
This conception is knowledge ; it may be true — that is, an 
adequate conception of the original — or it may not be. 
We may misconceive God, and so have a false God. The 
mind, in the act of intuition, looking out for truth, does 
not look at ideas, but at things ; it looks out of itself. It 
fixes its glance upon substance ; it beholds, and as the re- 
sult of its effort it gains an idea. An idea, then, is the im- 
pression made upon the mind in its cognizance of spiritual 
substance presented before it — the intellectual conception 
which it forms of spiritual substance. And just as in na- 
ture the scene presenting itself before the vision is depend- 
ent upon the eye, so in the world of Spirit the idea, the view 
which the mind takes of spiritual substance, varies with the 
condition of the intellectual vision. The more practised 



WHAT IS RELIGION? IQ 

and powerful the mind, the clearer the idea. The weaker 
the mind, the more confused its intellectual conceptions. 

Thus, then, in the first place we have substance, exist- 
ence, realities, self, the world, and God. Of these objects 
we are conscious. Next we have our ideas of them, 
which may be more or less perfect, and more or less false ; 
and these ideas taken together constitute our fund of knowl- 
edge. Of this we are conscious only as of its being ours ; 
we know not whether it corresponds with the reality; there- 
fore, in this case, we believe or think only. 

Consciousness is the organ for taking cognizance of sub- 
stance or being ; it is this only that it takes hold of and 
makes known to us. But substance cannot remain long 
before the mind, if at all, without having qualities attached 
to it. The very first operation of mind is to conceive of 
and to know that of which it is conscious. Synchronously, 
therefore, with the consciousness of being, arises some con- 
ception of it j and this conception arises from the attaching 
of qualities to the substance. A child, for instance, begins 
with being conscious of God as a substance ; his mind is 
prepared and ready to conceive of Him. Gradually, in 
the course of education, one after another attribute is at- 
tached to this substance, different objects are pointed out 
and assigned to God as their creator; everything that is not 
made by man, the child is informed, is created by God. He 
learns thus to conceive of Him as the Creator. The sub- 
stance is now beginning to leave the region of the unde- 
iined and to take form. Again, moral attributes are as- 
signed, and by the pupil attached to this substance ; and so 
on, until the pupil has learned to attach all that is known 
of God to Him ; and thus his conception is completed. 
Now, it is a law of the mind that substance should absorb 
qualities, and that thenceforth there is no distinction in the 
mind between them. Qualities attach themselves so abso- 



20 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

lately to substance that they cease to be viewed as distinct 
from substance itself. Thus it happens that, although our 
conception of God is a different thing from His substance, 
nevertheless, when we have attained to a knowledge of 
Him, we are conscious of Him according to such concep- 
tion of Him. We have been taught that God is omnipo- 
tent, omnipresent, omniscient, and eternal ; we have learned, 
moreover, that He is holy, just, and good ; and we are 
therefore conscious of Him as such. Henceforth we can- 
not disconnect these qualities from his substance, and must 
be conscious of Him under such conditions. The knowl- 
edge which we have of a thing thus passes over into the 
region of our consciousness. Thus, though all men are 
conscious of the same substance, they are not of the same 
God ; the conceptions which they have formed of that 
substance separate them from each other. The Hindoo is 
conscious of God as Brahm or Buddha, the Mohammedan 
as Allah, the Jew as Jehovah, and the Christian as the 
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. There are certain qualities 
and attributes which mankind almost universally agree in 
assigning to the Divine substance, namely, what we know as 
the natural attributes — omnipotence, omnipresence, self- 
existence, omniscience, and eternity. But in relation to 
the moral character of the Deity there is much diversity of 
opinion. The Jewish and the Christian are the most fa- 
miliar to us. The conspicuous attribute assigned to God, 
under the Old Testament dispensation, is holiness ; a new 
conception to the world, one, therefore, which required ^ 
long and elaborate system of education before it could be 
planted in the human mind. No religion compares with 
the Jewish in the conception which it offers of the Deity. 
In none of them does His personality so clearly and so 
conspicuously stand out. The Christian conception is ex- 
actly that of the Jewish, more clearly enunciated, and pre- 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 21 

senting, moreover, to the human mind the mode of exist- 
ence in the Divine substance, namely, as Father, Son, and 
Holy Ghost. We then, as Christians, are conscious of 
God not merely as Jehovah, but also as the Triune one — 
the Father, Son, and Holy. Ghost. This conception has 
passed over into the region of our consciousness ; we can- 
not think of God without this conception coming with it ; 
the attribute has lost itself in the substance. We look up 
at the stars, and at once we conceive of our God as om- 
nipotent j and we feel that he is with us as omnipresent. We 
look out upon the beauty of a summer landscape, and we 
are conscious of Him as our Father. The Christian con- 
sciousness of God contains, then, in it all that is made 
known of Him in the Old and New Testament. The 
Christian cannot be conscious of God but as therein repre- 
sented. Different aspects of the Divine character, and dif- 
ferent attributes may, according to circumstances, occupy 
the mind in its periods of consciousness ; but all of them 
will be found there, and all can be elicited when the proper 
occasion presents itself. And this Christian consciousness 
has, even unwittingly, a powerful effect upon human char- 
acter and conduct ; for man cannot but be more or less af- 
fected by his knowledge of God. His consciousness of 
Him is a fact in his constitution. It may be much re- 
pressed, nay almost extinguished, but wherever it does 
occur, it brings with it all that is known of God. His 
mightiness and His holiness rise before the mind, and in 
the individual, and in the mass, even such a temporary and 
fluctuating consciousness produces a mighty effect. It 
makes this nineteenth century, with all its advance of civi- 
lization, what it is. It is this knowledge of God that puts 
us where we now find ourselves in the historic development 
of the race. The knowledge of God is a mighty element 
in the world's advance. Man may not recognize it, still it 



22 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

is a power. And it is this internal element of human na- 
ture that makes it so ; we cannot escape ourselves, and what 
we know of God through this vital inlet to our very im- 
mortal being will affect us. As living under the light of 
Christianity, we must be conscious of, and consequently 
affected by our vital contact with the Triune Jehovah. 

The consciousness of God is, then, but the basis and root 
of religion. It renders the soul susceptible of the knowl- 
edge of the Divine, and moves it from its very depths to 
seek after God. It haunts man with a sense of his contact 
with the unseen, infinite, and eternal ; but by itself it is 
blind. By it, man, under the strongest kind of certainty 
of which his nature is susceptible, becomes conscious of the 
being of something besides himself and nature — of the 
being of an invisible, infinite, and yet unknown God. 
Thus he is susceptible of, and, according as the conscious- 
ness is more or less developed, is anxious for light. Reve- 
lation is the only adequate method by which this want 
can be supplied ; without it, man must inevitably sink into 
idolatry. 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 23 

CHAPTER II. 

THEISM. 

WHAT is a theism ? It is the conception which the 
mind forms of God — the idea which the mind 
forms of the God with whom it feels itself to be in imme- 
diate contact. God, as a reality, exists outside of the soul. 
It must form to itself some conception of this Being. To 
be continually on the strain of seeking to behold the In- 
finite is, as an exercise, too severe to be long continued. 
The mind, therefore, forms an idea which is, as it were, the 
image of the reality, at least in so far as it is able to con- 
ceive of it. And this image it can make the object of its 
contemplation without any peculiar effort, whenever it feels 
disposed to. God exists, then, in the mind as an idea. 
The theism of a religion gives us that idea. 

As soon as the consciousness of God begins to dawn 
upon the human mind (which takes place synchronously 
with the development of the other elements of human con- 
sciousness), at once there begins to arise, corresponding to 
it, an idea of the Deity. Necessarily, the mind begins to 
construct for itself a conception of God. The sources from 
which it may draw in proceeding to construct this concep- 
tion are, in brief, twofold — revelation, and man's own un- 
assisted powers. We will for the present confine ourselves 
to the consideration of the latter as a source of knowledge. 

The human race, as one form of existence, is an organ- 
ism. Every individual is but a part and member of the 
whole. No individual stands out before us as entirely iso- 
lated ; none but the first father of the race has ever occu- 
pied such a position. In every individual, therefore, we 



24 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

have the result of preceding generations, and his own ideas 
are not, as he might at first think, entirely his own, but are 
results arising from the communicated thoughts and con- 
ceptions of the individuals of ages gone by. Every indi- 
vidual is therefore related to, and dependent upon the past, 
and necessarily all his conceptions will be affected more or 
less by such relation. 

The conception of God, like all others, is liable to be 
affected by these circumstances, even supposing there be 
no revelation; still men in times past must and have formed 
some conception of the Deity, and this co^iception naturally 
is handed down from father to son, from generation to gen- 
eration, constituting thus what may be termed a traditional 
theism. Of course, the mind of every individual forming 
a link in this sequence will necessarily be affected more or 
less by such traditional knowledge. Such being the state 
of the case, it becomes almost impossible for the human 
mind, untrammelled, and unbiassed by tradition, to form 
an original conception of the Deity. Perhaps, however, 
some such instances have really occurred among the great 
minds of the past ; men who have been enabled to throw 
off the whole pressure of the past, and to think and con- 
ceive for themselves as if they stood alone in the world. 
Plato and Socrates, among the Greeks, are instances in 
point, and among other nations, no doubt, there are cases 
just as striking. All the founders of new religions must, to 
some extent, partake of this character — must have stood 
out alone, must have trampled upon the prejudices and 
ignorance of the past, and have thought for themselves. 

Taking, then, for granted the possibility of an original 
conception of the Deity, let us consider the sources from 
which it must draw its material. Evidently they are two- 
fold : self and nature. In the one we will find the spirit- 
ual and the moral ; in the other, the Infinite. The two, 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 2$ 

taken together, will give us a possible human conception 
of God. To form an adequate conception of the Deity, 
both of these sources must be drawn upon. The impres- 
sions created by the contemplation or study of nature must 
be carefully supplemented by those obtained from the con- 
templation of self. Without a careful observance of this 
rule, man must necessarily form a one-sided notion of the 
Deity. Suppose, for instance, nature only be contem- 
plated. Under such circumstances there will arise upon 
the mind impressions adapted to the infinite ; the ocean in 
its vastness, the mountain in its grandeur, the desert in its 
awfulness, all create impressions. In the view of such sub- 
lime objects there sweep through the soul feelings all but 
inexpressible ; awe and reverence, terror and admiration, 
alternately, and then again all together rush upon the 
soul, and oftentimes man falls down and in mute admiration 
worships the creature rather than the Creator. These feel- 
ings find their full correspondent only in the infinite ; and 
in the religious soul where the consciousness of God is de-- 
veloped, and where God is kept separate from nature, such 
feelings naturally pass over to their corresponding object, 
and man religiously, under the pressure of such impres- 
sions, worships the God of nature. All that is grand, and 
terrible, and beautiful in nature, thus goes first towards 
producing emotions ; secondarily, in reinforcing the im- 
pressions of the soul, as existing in its consciousness of God, 
of his omnipresence and his infinity. The impressions pro- 
duced in the contemplation of the Beautiful modify to some 
extent the first, as to this awfulness, and enables to enter 
into that conception something of goodness. But the 
former impression is in the preponderance, and man, in 
the contemplation of nature, naturally rises to the idea of 
the eternal power and Godhead of the Deity. Thus we 
see how, in the contemplation of nature, indirectly there 
.3 



26 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

arises within the soul, through the medium of the sensibil- 
ities, some idea of His being; an idea, however, which 
from its very nature must be indefinite. The Infinite can 
have no form, cannot be conceived of by the finite ; there 
can therefore be no human idea of it ; man can therefore 
be only conscious of it, without conceiving of it. None 
but God himself, as in the ** Logos," can form an idea of 
himself. The idea of God derived, then, from the con- 
templation of nature, must necessarily be indefinite. In it 
man is simply intensely conscious of God's infinity, of 
*' his eternal power and Godhead," as the inspired apostle 
puts it. How the impressions produced in the contempla- 
tion of nature come to pass over from one object, and be 
transferred to another ; how they happen to leave nature, 
and to attach themselves to God ; how the soul comes to 
transfer those emotions arising in the contemplation of the 
grand, or terrible, or awful, or beautiful ; from the object 
giving rise to them, to the Deity ; why it does so ? we can only 
answer by saying, such is the fact. That such an operation 
does take place is a psychical fact ; it admits of no expla- 
nation : it is a law, a fundamental fact. Reason has nothing 
to do with the operation ; it is immediate. If reason 
comes in and presumes to do its work, the operation is pre- 
vented. Reason, it is true, has its place in the argument 
from design, and justly argues that when contrivance is so 
intricate, so evidently adapted to ends, there must be a de- 
signer, and one of profound wisdom. But this is not the 
process employed here, reason interrupts. The soul, in 
contemplation of nature, at once, through its sensibilities, 
rises into an intensified consciousness of the infinity of the 
Creator. There is no argument here ; it would in fact only 
serve to break the chain by which the soul makes fast at 
once to its God. This cold method can never be conclu- 
sive as to the reality of God. After the argument is com- 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 2/ 

plete, and although there may seem to be no possible flaw 
in it, still the soul is cold and suspicious. By an irrefra- 
gable argument, God is proved to be of profound wisdom ; 
but still the soul is not moved : it is convinced, we must say, 
for the argument is conclusive and irrefragable ; but intel- 
lectual conviction does not seem to be enough. The soul 
must know ; and it cannot know of that which is without 
it but through its consciousness. We say, without it ; but 
perhaps this needs modification. We are conscious of God, 
no doubt, because he is actually in the soul — not a fact of 
the soul, but nevertheless in some inexplicable way within 
it; for one cannot properly be said to be conscious of 
that which is without. Reason, then, is not the proper 
organ ; there is no organ. The soul is conscious of God. 
He who is without this consciousness cannot know God. 
Reason may convince, may prove the wisdom, goodness, 
greatness of God ; but still He will be without the soul. 
Unless, in the first place, the soul be conscious of God, all 
the efforts of reason, all arguments will be unavailing. 
Reason can legitimately follow and confirm consciousness, 
but not precede it. There is a vitality, a realization in the 
acts of the soul during its state of consciousness to which 
no other state approximates. During such a state the soul 
spiritually discerns its object, is in immediate contact with 
it, and feels such impressions as such object by its nature is 
calculated to awaken. Under any other state, as for in- 
stance during an intellectual process, the soul is engaged 
in examining, analyzing, comparing, generalizing. It is 
looking at parts, and not at the whole ; it is occupied in 
the details of a process, has lost sight of the object which 
in the first place gave rise to this examination and process. 
The chasm subsisting between a state of intellectual con- 
viction and that of a consciousness of anything is profound. 
The two states are entirely distinct. An intellectual con- 



28 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

viction never has in it that vitality which is attendant upon 
a fact of the consciousness. Thus, metaphysically, we may 
clearly prove the existence and attributes of God, and still 
such a conviction may be wholly uninfluential — a demon- 
stration, an intellectual fact, and yet a dead one. But let 
the consciousness of God dawn upon the soul, and at once 
it is alive, moving, feeling after Him — fearing, worship- 
ping, praying to Him. 

The contemplation of nature, then, produces impressions. 
These the religious soul at once carries over to the being or 
substance of God, as existing in the consciousness of Him, 
and attaches them to it. These impressions all clustering 
around the dim, undefined notion of the Infinite, deepen 
and vivify it as a fact in the consciousness, making it almost 
personal, the infinite to be the Infinite One. And if the 
intensifying of a previously existing fact of consciousness 
can be said to be a 'defining, we might say that so far 
nature has aided in the formation of a theism. The God of 
such a theism would evidently be a reality, a vitality in the 
soul ; but still such a conception must necessarily be wholly 
inadequate. While the eternal power and Godhead of the 
Deity would be known, still, without something further, 
man would remain ignorant of the moral character of God, 
and under such circumstances would find it impossible to 
arrive at the knowledge of the way in which he should 
serve Him ; in the depths of his soul he would reverence 
and worship Him, in his eternal power and Godhead ; pro- 
vided the consciousness of moral guilt be not awakened, 
such a worshipper, like Cain, might deem it becoming, as 
expressive of his homage, to present before Him an offer- 
ing of the first-fruits of the earth. 

Another very important element must then enter into 
man's conception of the Deity before it can by any means 
be an adequate one, and before it will meet the demands of 
the human consciousness. 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 29 

Man is conscious not only of nature, but also of self, 
and in his conception of the Deity, both of these elements 
must necessarily exercise an important influence. The 
principal elements entering into the unity of self, and in 
fact constituting it, are thought, and moral character ; both 
of these properties the soul instantly and instinctively trans- 
fers to the Deity, and at once conceives of Him as possess- 
ing them. Just as in the contemplation of nature the soul 
conceives of the Deity as the Infinite One, so in the con- 
templation of the intellectual and moral powers of human 
nature, man is necessitated to conceive of God as intel- 
lectual and moral. In both cases, the conception, from its 
very nature, is indefinite. In the one case, God is viewed 
as the Infinite ; it is the eternal power and Godhead that 
pass before the mind ; and since the mind is finite, it can- 
not grasp the whole, cannot hold before it steadily the idea 
of the Infinite ; hence the conception is dim and undefined. 
The mind fee/s and is conscious of the Infinite, rather than 
apprehends it. Thought, too, and moral character, as 
transferred to the Deity, are of the nature of the Infinite. 
His thought is felt to be incomprehensible, his moral char- 
acter perfection. Of both of these man may have some 
dim idea, of neither a comprehension. The conception 
of the Deity formed thus from these sources, will neces- 
sarily, then, be indefinite. Nature gives only an indefinite 
impression of His infinity ; self, but an indefinite impres- 
sion of his intellect and moral character. Such would be 
the nature of a theism honestly drawn by a candid mind 
from these two sources. Provided the consciousness of 
God be somewhat developed, which is certainly the case 
more or less, in every individual of the human race, — 
since all are more or less open to impressions from nature, 
since all more or less feel the existence of a law of right 
and wrong within, — all, provided they would use the light 



30 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

afforded, might arrive at such a conception of the Deity. 
The reason why so few do, is because no man stands an 
isolated being ; he is connected with the past j he is there- 
fore a product; his mind is affected by tradition; he is 
unable to be original, and to think for himself. What, 
therefore, was his forefather's conception of the Deity is his. 
Thus prejudice effectually closes the soul to the light that 
shines upon it from without and from within. 

In a theism drawn from these original sources there would 
then be three elements, physical, intellectual, and moral, 
all felt to be Infinite, and, therefore, together offering an 
object fit to be worshipped, depended upon, and obeyed. 
The majesty of such a Being would naturally call for awe 
and reverence, and His felt perfection in intellectual and 
moral character would necessarily draw with it a sense of 
obligation to fear and to obey. The law of right and 
wrong manifesting itself in the moral consciousness, serves 
to designate and express the will of such a being. It points 
to His law, and as such is descriptive of His moral char- 
acter. Under such circumstances it is, therefore, easily 
understood how such a Deity is to be served. He is felt, 
not merely to be tremendous, but also as one who loves the 
right and hates the wrong. The creature knows, therefore, 
how to serve Him : and here another fact is to be taken 
into consideration. A view of the inner life brings before 
the consciousness the fact of man's moral culpability. The 
law of right and wrong is consciously felt to be often dis- 
regarded. The soul, therefore, cannot but necessarily feel 
its guilt, and in the face of this fact it is afraid. It fears to 
look boldly at its God, but seeks to hide itself, and to for- 
get Him. When it thinks of Him it is afraid, sombre 
shadows gather around His throne, and fitful lightnings 
playing around, forebode a coming storm. Under its sense 
of guilt, the Deity to the soul assumes a threatening aspect ; 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 3I 

all that is gloomy and terrible in nature seems symbolic of 
His wrath. At once he is conceived of, not only as ma- 
jestic, but as terrible, and the soul stands cowed before 
Him. All the impressions created by the terrible in nature 
pass over to the Deity, and so He becomes not only the 
object of reverence, but of fear. 

The conception then formed of the Deity is subject to mod- 
ifications, and these depend on the subjective state of the indi- 
vidual. To the soul in which the moral consciousness is de- 
veloped, the Deity assumes a terrible aspect, and the soul is 
afraid of Him ; where, on the other hand, this element of 
consciousness is but faint, and imperfectly developed, where 
it is almost suppressed, as is the case after a long course of 
moral degradation, this terror is but faintly experienced. In 
such cases, man even ceases to clothe the deity with a moral 
character. The deity of whom he conceives is all but as 
degraded as himself; He knows not what the loftier points 
of moral character are, hence his god is but a brute. But 
even under such imperfect moral development it is possible 
for man still to be open to impressions from nature. Though 
the light that is within him be all but darkness, still the 
light from without may be perceived ; thus the eternal 
power and Godhead of the Deity may be felt, and yet, at 
the same time. His moral character may be unknown. 
Here, then, we have a tremendous, a majestic, an awful 
Deity, but not the Holy One and the Just. The two things 
are abstractly separable, though practically and in reality 
this never occurs. The moral consciousness always, to some 
extent, will assert itself; Nature must, to some extent, im- 
press the soul through the senses ; and so, let but the con- 
sciousness of God exist, though never so faintly, and man 
cannot but conceive of Him in both capacities — both as 
mighty and good, and just and holy. Here, then, we have 
a theism such as human nature, were it but true to itself and 



32 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

untrammelled by traditional prejudice, is capable of con- 
structing. The material is at hand; nothing is required 
but honest, truthful thoughtfulness. Here we have* before 
us a God inspiring us with awe and reverence, a mighty, 
omnipotent Creator, one felt to be worthy of our adora- 
tion, and not only great, but also holy, just, and good. A 
God of perfect moral character, hence one whom, by an 
observation of the dictates of the voice within the soul, we 
can know how to serve ; but one whom the same voice 
within tells us that we do not serve, but, on the contrary, 
every day of our lives, disobey, and provoke his wrath and 
indignation against us ; — one, therefore, of whom the soul 
cannot but feel afraid. 

One other modification, it must be observed, such a the- 
ism is subject to. Supposing the soul to be fairly opened 
to impressions from nature, it may happen, and often actu- 
ally does, that it is more impressed by the signs of good- 
ness in nature than of greatness. To such minds the char- 
acter of the Deity, as derived from such sources, assumes 
the aspect of infinite goodness and benevolence, rather than 
of majesty and awful and unapproachable holiness. Such 
minds are open to impressions from the beautiful, the peace- 
ful, and all that is soothing, rather than to those which are 
from the awe-inspiring and terrifying. The soothing sense 
of goodness and benevolence excited in such minds in the 
contemplation of nature, at once passes over to the Deity, 
and attaches itself to Him. By such God is regarded as 
only of infinite goodness and benevolence ; all other moral 
perfections are ingulfed in these. He is not feared, because 
He is all love, and no matter what may be the subjective 
condition of the creature, he concludes that he is not 
authorized to apprehend anything. In such cases, parallel 
to views of the Divine character as derived from nature, 
arises a supplementary view, as derived from self. The 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 33 

moral consciousness is imperfectly developed, there is no 
sense of guilt, no consciousness of moral disorder within. 
The all-benevolence of the Deity overlaps all other impres- 
sions ; all feelings arising out of the moral consciousness 
are suppressed. The all-preponderating element in the 
conception of the Deity is his all-benevolence. Here, then, 
we have another form, or rather modification, of theism, 
derived from natural sources; — a theism recognizing both 
the majesty and the moral character of the Deity, but in 
which the benevolent element is by far the preponderating 
one. 

All the conceptions of the Deity possible fall naturally 
under one or the other of the following forms : Monothe- 
ism, Polytheism, Pantheism, Atheism. 

Monotheism, in its primitive features, we have already 
considered. Admitting a development of the consciousness 
of God, the conception which the soul forms of Him nat- 
urally takes this form. Essentially it is a spiritual concep- 
tion. The Deity is viewed in his infinity and perfection ; 
and since it is the finite that is the beholder, necessarily 
such a conception must be dim and confused. It is hardly 
a conception at all ; it wants definiteness, and falls back 
upon the region of the consciousness, reaffirming and inten- 
sifying an antecedent intuition. The intellect has done its 
part ; it has examined and contemplated the evidences 
offered, has felt its inadequacy in the premises, and has 
been impressed rather than convinced. 

In the monotheistic conception, God is conceived of as 
the Infinite and the perfect One, and especially as the One. 
This it is which separates this from the succeeding view of 
Polytheism. Then, again. He is conceived of as the Creator 
as distinct from the creation — as a personal God. The soul 
is conscious of Him as distinct from self and from the world, 
and this draws the line between it and Pantheism. 

C 



34 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

Apart from all intellectual effort, provided only the 
consciousness of God be not smothered, this monotheistic 
conception of the Deity will assert itself. Springing out 
of elements necessary in human nature, and demanded 
by the facts of the soul and of the world, Monotheism 
naturally dawns upon the soul. It is only through some 
abnormal process that it can be prevented. Now, Mono- 
theism is indefinite. The soul, therefore, becomes dis- 
satisfied with it ; though finite, it would comprehend the 
infinite. It seeks, therefore, to define; necessarily it must 
fail. The finite can never define the infinite ; its concep- 
tion must fall far short of the reality ; either it will sink to 
the finite, thus falling back on what is known, or in its ef- 
fort to grasp the whole will stagger, become confused, and 
lose sight of its object. Thus, as the result of man's spec- 
ulations on this subject, we have on the one hand. Polythe- 
ism, on the other Pantheism ; both the results of human 
reason in its effort to conceive of and to define the Infinite. 

Polytheism begins, then, in intellectuality. The soul seeks 
to become more fully acquainted with the objects of its 
worship. To do this it uses the medium of the seen. Leav- 
ing the intuitions, to conceive of the unseen, necessarily we 
must fall back upon the seen. The conception will, there- 
fore, necessarily leave the region of the infinite and fall 
back upon the finite. The soul can be conscious of the in- 
finite, but when it goes to conceive of it, it must reduce it 
to the finite. The highest conception of the Deity, under 
such limitation, must still be a finite one, and so below the 
truth, and therefore inadequate. If this conception be 
taken as a full view, then it is false. This is just what hap- 
pens : the finite is taken as the image of the infinite, the 
infinite disappears, and the inadequate finite supplies its 
place, and so at once man has a false conception of God. 
A false idea now occupies the place of true reality ; man 
worships his ideal God, and becomes sincerely an idolater. 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 35 

The intellect is the betrayer, pride of intellect the tempter, 
and man is lost through speculation,. 

The highest form in which the finite presents itself before 
the mind, is, in man. Man, then, in his personality, will be 
the substance around which all the qualities considered divine 
will ultimately crystallize. Man at first, for the sake of his 
personality, being thus deified, soon the divine and human 
become confused. Qualities which are essentially human, 
evil propensities, passions, and lusts, pass over from man to 
God, and are considered as divine attributes. The powers 
of nature, too, the genial and the dread, the desired and the 
feared, these too are considered divine attributes, and are 
personified by being assigned to some human God. Heroes 
and heroines, transfigured through the haziness of time and 
tradition, undergo apotheosis, and give finally a heavenly 
pantheon of earthly divinities. In the first place, God is the 
One; the infinite is still in unity; such is the testimony of 
consciousness. But under Polytheism the complexity of 
this unity undergoes analysis; its elements are separated, 
each one becoming the peculiar characteristic of some spe- 
cial divinity. The grand unity of the infinite, as thus con- 
ceived, undergoes disintegration, its elements passing over 
into the vast multiplicity of heathen Polytheism. 

Such a process, from the very nature of the case, is unend- 
ing. Inasmuch as the Infinite can never be exhausted, it 
follows that the polytheistic list of divinities can never be 
completed. Of this incompleteness of the divine idea, the 
heathen mind could not but be conscious. So long as the 
Pantheon could admit of the introduction of some other 
deity, it must have been seen that all of God was not known. 
A fact peculiarly expressive of this unsatisfied condition of 
the heathen mind with respect to its conception of God 
was noted by the Apostle Paul, during his sojourn in Athens. 
In his speech on Mars Hill he remarks tliat he has ob- 
served an altar with this inscription: *'To the unknown 



2,6 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

God." Athens was famous for the number of its divinities, 
and yet with so many, still the religious mind recognized 
the fact that the idea of God was not yet exhausted ; they 
felt that, with all their gods, still the whole God was not 
yet completed. 

Evidently all the heathen deities must be taken toge- 
ther in order to give us the polytheistic notion of God. 
Grouping all these deities together, we would have a 
unity, and in this unity would be found all the attributes 
considered divine. This unity would be the true polythe- 
istic god, and should any of the ancients have employed 
such a process, he must at once have fallen back on the 
original monotheistic idea. Polytheism no doubt begins in 
personifying what it regards as divine attributes, attaching 
them at first to human beings, and so making God, raan or 
men ; thus there arises multiplicity in the conception of 
God. It is the multitude of persons included that creates 
the difficulty, the absurdity of the conception. Drop the 
person, and you have an attribute. Take all together, and 
you have the polytheistic idea of God. This, of course, is 
not done actually. The primary idea in the mind of the 
heathen worshipper is the person of his God ; but this is a 
result — Polytheism in its finality, not in its beginning. It 
begins in personifying what it conceives to be divine ; and 
it regards as divine what it fears as well as what it loves. 
Having arrived, then, at the concrete, it worships the per- 
son, thenceforth regarding the primary conception as but 
an attribute. And so in the finality we have the polythe- 
istic Pantheon of gods. The meaning of Polytheism can 
be ascertained only by denuding these attributes of their 
personality, and thus bringing them out again in their state 
of primal abstraction. 

Polytheism, having forsaken the original intuition of the 
soul — being dissatisfied with the only natural way of be- 
holding God in self and in nature — having forsaken these 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 3/ 

living fountains of light, betakes itself, as we have seen, for 
aid to reason. Reason is insufficient in the premises. The 
primary intuition of the Divine unity becomes lost, passing 
over into the multiplicity of a polytheistic pantheon, and so 
producing false gods and idolatry. If Polytheism were 
logically complete, men must worship the evil as well as 
the good. In fact, being actuated by their fears more than 
by their loves, men would worship the evil more than the 
good. In worshipping the evil, their object would be to 
appease ; and since the good must be regarded as benevo- 
lent, it would be neglected : hence a devil worship. That 
which is terrible and malignant being dreaded, is first per- 
sonified, then deified, then worshipped, that it may be pro- 
pitiated. Polytheism naturally ends in devil-worship. One 
more step remains before the process is complete. The 
gods are localized ; multiplicity in the godhead is the ante- 
cedent, localization is the consequent. The universal One, 
of course, could not be localized. He is the All in All, the 
One who is everywhere. But Polytheism consisting in mul- 
tiplicity, is evidently consistent with localization ; more- 
over, it admits of a representation of the Deity, and so is 
doubly consistent with localization. First, the Deity is 
symbolically localized ; then the symbolic presence ceases, 
and a real one takes its place ; the stock ceases to be a sym- 
bol, it becomes an image, then an idol, and so a god. 
There is a tendency in human nature to localize the Deity ; 
Polytheism fosters this tendency, and allows it to be logi- 
cally realized. 

This tendency still continues to assert itself, even in 
Christendom. The Deity is first localized in places, then 
represented and localized in things. First, there is a 
church, and here the Deity is more generally localized ; 
then a communion table, here the localization is more spe- 
cific ; then there is a celebration of the Eucharist, including 
4 



38 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

two ideas, time and place. On this occasion, in the ele- 
ments of bread and wine upon a communion table, which 
at once becomes an altar, God as a sacrifice is symbolically- 
represented ; then the symbol fades away, leaving a reality 
in its place ; so that in the Eucharist upon the altar, in the 
form of bread and wine, God is really present. According 
to the Roman Catholic scheme, the bread and wine cease to 
exist, and God the incarnate Son in flesh and blood is 
present in the Eucharist. Here, then, we have conjured up 
before us visibly, a new God — the Christian God — the 
* Host. ' Thus the Christian world returns to Heathenism, 
and begins to build again the Pantheon of Polytheism. 

The third form of Theism which offers itself is Pantheism. 
Here, as in the preceding case, the intellect is at fault. 
The consciousness of God, true to its instinct, goes out in 
search of its object. It feels after God, if peradventure it 
may find Him and know Him. The intellect essays to sup- 
ply this want; it attempts to form an adequate conception 
of the Deity. The subject is too great for it, the concep- 
tion too prodigious. It seeks to grasp the reality, it misses 
its hold, the reality eludes it, and it grasps a phantom. 
The consciousness of God bespeaks, besides self and the 
world, a third reality. Pantheism contradicts this ; before 
it, God as a third reality disappears. There are but two 
realities, self and the world, and they are God. The in- 
tellect unable to conceive of the Infinite, supplies its place 
by the finite, and even this is inadequately conceived. The 
universe is God, God is the All, and the All is God. Poly- 
theism in its effort to conceive of the Deity, fell ; still it 
retained the idea of personality. Pantheism loses even 
this. God being everything, of course ceases to be per- 
sonal. He is the universe, the impersonal One; man is 
God in his highest manifestation — God becoming conscious 
of himself. 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 39 

And this brings us at last to the negation of all forms of 
Theism, namely, Atheism. Pantheism, in reducing the ele- 
ments of human consciousness to two, allows Atheism at 
once to come into being. Deny that there is a third reality, 
distinct from self and nature, and you have Atheism. Pan- 
theism in words admits the reality of a third substance, but 
in conceiving of it resolves that substance into a combina- 
tion of the other two. Its Theism is therefore an Atheism ; 
there is, according to it, no. third substance — God. It ad- 
mits that there is a third element in the human conscious- 
ness, but in reality denies that there is any substance cor- 
responding to such a consciousness. Thus, practically. 
Atheism goes one step farther. First, like Pantheism, it 
denies any third substance besides self and the universe, 
and then it denies any third element in the human con- 
sciousness. It denies, therefore, that man is conscious of 
God. Such is the inevitable consequence of a pantheistic 
Theism. That Atheism is possible in human nature is a 
question ; philosophically it is possible. That the conscious- 
ness of God should be wholly extinguished, and so the soul 
left with but the two elements of self and world-conscious- 
ness, is certainly possible, but not probable. The man or 
the people in such condition would find it impossible to be 
religious. They would be conscious of nothing but of them- 
selves and of nature, and would be wholly unsusceptible to 
any idea of God. It would be impossible to bring such 
creatures to the sense of being under any obligation to such 
a Being. They would feel themselves isolated — absolutely 
independent and irresponsible for their conduct. The reli- 
gious element would not exist among such a people. Per- 
haps there are such ; if so, they are the wrecks of human 
nature, being, as to one third, without the essential ele- 
ments of the human constitution. The consciousness of 
God, though often so much repressed as almost to be for- 



40 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

gotten, will nevertheless at times assert itself, and so prove 
its existence. But Polytheism and Pantheism are facts; 
both are theistic forms of intellectual error. In the one, 
the true original monotheistic idea is dissipated, degraded, 
and lost ; in the other, the same idea is lost, and in its place 
arises a composite one, made up from self and the world. 
Monotheism, Polytheism, Pantheism, and the negative, 
Atheism, such, in brief, are the forms which, in the en- 
deavor to conceive of God, the idea may assume. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE FEAR OF GOD. 



THE analysis of human consciousness gives us, as we 
have seen, three elements. Turning our observation 
upon one of these, the consciousness of self, and proceed- 
ing to analyze it, we find as one of its elements, the reli- 
gious consciousness. On proceeding to analyze this, we 
find at once, as its base, the primary condition of the con- 
sciousness of God. Having considered this element in its 
nature and method, we proceed to examine the next element 
contained in the religious consciousness. In order to un- 
derstand this subject, it becomes necessary here to enter into 
the examination of another element contained in the con- 
sciousness of self, namely, the moral. It has been usual in 
psychological inquiry to classify the religious and the moral 
consciousness together : they are essentially distinct. Of 
course, they come together in the unity of the personal self; 
still they are separable ; and again, they are correlative, 
relating to matters that render it possible for them to come 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 4I 

together J>er sese. The moral consciousness, we have seen, 
finds a point of contact with the religious at the point where 
moral obligation is felt. Here, as an impulse, the moral 
and the religious act together. The obligation to virtue 
arising from a sense of the Divine, is a thing entirely dis- 
tinct from that arising involuntarily out of man's moral 
consciousness ; in fact, they are separable. It is possible 
for the religious consciousness to be so suppressed by a 
course of moral degradation, that man should almost — 
perhaps entirely, if Atheism be possible — lose his con- 
sciousness of God. But even t^ien the moral consciousness 
will assert itself; the law of right and wrong will make 
itself known within, and conscience will make itself felt as 
a moral force, approving the right, condemning the wrong. 
Again, in an age of scepticism, in which the consciousness 
of God, as in the other case, ceases to operate, still the 
moral sense does and will usually assert itself. In a scep- 
tical age, the consciousness of God ceases to be felt, because 
it is bewildered. The conception which the mind presents 
to it, is unsatisfactory, it is pantheistic ; or perhaps there is 
no formal conception, but all is doubt and darkness. Un- 
der such circumstances the divine obligation to virtue ceases 
to be felt, and yet, during such times, virtuous men are by no 
means uncommon. Their virtue is morality, and not god- 
liness ; and this, in fact, even under the light of Christianity, 
is often the condition of things. Men absorbed in the 
business or pleasures of life, or perhaps in literary or scien- 
tific pursuits, by an exclusive attention to the facts of self 
or nature, manage to suppress the consciousness of God, 
and cease finally to be religious; and though they may 
practise virtue, they do it, not in the fear of God, but 
simply conscientiously, or in the fear of man. God to such 
characters has, as an operative force, ceased to exist ; they 
are no longer conscious of Him ; they have suppressed the 
4* 



42 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

consciousness of Him, and with it all religion. Morality, 
then, and godliness, though correlative, are entirely distinct. 

To suppose the entire suppression of the consciousness 
of God, is however, it must be admitted, an extreme case. 
It is not true of the generality of instances ; and although 
virtue may not be practised, still it is generally felt to be 
additionally obligatory because of God. 

But although godliness may not exist, and vice may be 
practised, still the fear of God, as a fact in the soul, may 
make itself felt. Here, then, we find ourselves in the pres- 
ence of the element after which we are inquiring. The 
facts of the moral consciousness, we say, will not give us 
fear. Let us analyze them. 

It is evident to every one who will observe the move- 
ments that take place within the soul, that there is a 
certain spiritual force operating within, compelling to one 
course of action, deterring from another. Place a man in 
certain circumstances, and let it become necessary for him 
to act in what is known as the moral sphere, and at once he 
must become conscious that he is drawn or impelled by 
some force within to act in one way, and not to act in 
another. Under the same or precisely similar circumstances, 
the impulse will always tend to produce the same course of 
action ; and not only does this pertain to one individual, 
but to the whole race. All men are conscious, more or less, 
of such a force ; so much so, that, given the circumstances, 
it can be foretold how the individual will feel impelled to 
act. So universal and so constant is this force, that it can 
truly be attributed to human nature as a fact belonging to 
it. The circumstances under which this force makes itself 
felt, are in concrete individual cases. We must proceed, 
then, to classify. It is found that under one set of circum- 
stances, the force is always in the same direction ; hence 
we at once generalize, and so arrive at a law — a moral law. 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 43 

For instance, man finds within him something deterring 
him from the murder of his fellow-man. Invariably, when 
the circumstances exist, this force makes itself felt, both in 
the individual and in the race ; hence we say, it is a law. 
* Thou shalt do no murder : ' this law gives us, in brief, the 
rule of the acting of this spiritual force within us. All 
these generalizations taken together, go to make up the 
moral code ; and according as the moral force within us is 
more or less active, will this moral code be more or less 
extensive. The law is a generalization springing out of an 
observation of the acts of a force within. The case is ex- 
actly parallel with that of observation and generalization as 
applied to the physical sciences. In the one case, we ob- 
serve and classify the facts of nature ; in the other, the facts 
of self-consciousness. In the one, reason uses the eye of 
the body ; in the other, she uses the eye of the mind. In the 
one case, we have as a result, physical, in the other, moral, 
laws. 'Thou shalt do no murder,' *Thou shalt not steal,' 
'Thou shalt not commit adultery,' and innumerable other 
moral laws can be arrived at in this way — simply, by an 
observation of the facts of the moral consciousness, and by 
generalizing upon them. In physics, that which causes all 
bodies to tend to a certain centre, we call the force of 
gravity. In psychology, or morals, that which draws to 
one course of action, and deters from its opposite, we term 
the force of moral obligation. Again, this force of gravity 
is not uniform, but varies according to certain well-known 
laws; for instance, inversely as the square of the dis- 
tance, and in proportion to the density of the mass. So, 
likewise, with the force of moral obligation ; though con- 
stant, it is not uniform, but varies according to certain laws. 
It is stronger in cases included under the head of crimes, 
than in those coming under that of discourtesies ; there is 
a heavier pressure against murder, than against rudeness. 



44 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

In fact, there seems to be a great variation in the intensity 
of the moral force under different circumstances. 'Thou 
shalt not murder' is stronger than 'Thou shalt not steal;' 
and this last is stronger than * Thou shalt not bear false 
witness against thy neighbor ;' and again, this last is stronger 
than ' Thou shalt not covet ; ' and lastly, all of these are 
stronger than 'Be courteous and hospitable and gener- 
ous,' &c. Evidently, then, this force of moral obligation 
varies according to some settled law. Now, it is evident 
that the stronger the force, the greater will be the shock 
occasioned by a sudden resistance to it. The moral force 
is not a statical, but a dynamical force. Given the circum- 
stances adapted to develop it, and already it is in motion. 
It at once tends to produce its effect. Let the mind but 
propose an immoral act, and at once the moral force is in 
operation, tending to restrain. Resistance offered to this 
movement produces what may be termed a psychical fric- 
tion, which makes itself felt in the soul as a feverish rest- 
lessness, a painful uneasiness. The moral force resists the 
pressure offered by the will, and produces these painful 
psychical symptoms ; and this, when the moral conscious- 
ness is developed, is usually the condition of the soul. 
Dissatisfied with itself, it tosses about in a state of feverish 
restlessness. No act properly criminal has been performed ; 
the mighty force tending to prevent such acts has not been 
violently resisted ; no psychical shock has been received ; 
nevertheless, the soul feels itself to be in a state of general 
moral friction. The lesser moral forces are being contin- 
ually resisted, the laws of the force of moral obligation are 
being continually broken, and as the result, we have this 
state of psychical restlessness, culminating in regret ; and • 
this restlessness in its turn passes over into irritability and 
impatience, which again in their turn bring a resistance to 
the moral force, aggravate the dissatisfaction, and so on — 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 45 

a circle of forces being set in motion, each increasing the 
force of the other, the uneasiness only becomes more and 
more aggravated, and so the soul becomes more and more 
unhappy. Let but the moral consciousness be properly de- 
veloped, and inevitably, even in cases where no criminal 
act has been performed, all these facts will follow. 

But now suppose some deeply criminal act to have been 
committed ; supposing the moral consciousness to be prop- 
erly developed, here we must inevitably find profound un- 
happiness. In such a case, not only have we a most in- 
tense friction, but something more. A sudden and effectual 
resistance has been offered to the very strongest psychical 
force, that force was in motion, and as a result, we have a 
violent moral shock. At first the soul recoils, then it stands 
for a moment appalled, benumbed by the shock, then at 
once, in one gigantic wave, its guilt is hurled upon it, and 
it staggers under its misery. Here, then, we find remorse ; 
the soul staggering under the shock received in resistance 
to its most powerful inner force. Here we have not only 
restlessness and dissatisfaction, but also absolute wretched- 
ness. Resistance to the lesser degree of the force of moral 
obligation generates psychical friction, and when the resist- 
ance is effectual, regret. Successful resistance offered to the 
greater degrees of this force, generates remorse. Still we 
have not arrived at anything like fear. It is not in remorse ; 
it is not, in fine, an element of the moral consciousness. 

Fear is evidently a perturbation of the soul, a painful 
condition ; but it is so, because in it, the soul looks to the 
future. The eye of the soul is fixed upon an object ; it is 
disturbed, thrills with tremors, is terrified, is in an agony 
perhaps ; but why? Because it apprehends some harm from 
the object on which it gazes. Looking to the future, it ap- 
prehends pain, and therefore is uneasy. Remorse, on the 
other hand, looks to the past; it looks backward, the 



46 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

ghastly phantom of the deed of darkness rises before it, it 
glares upon it, and the soul in its agony sweats great drops 
of blood ; it writhes and groans in its struggles to escape, 
but still the ghastly spectre of its guilt will glare upon it; 
it cannot escape. To forget is the only antidote for this 
agony. As long as the deed continues to stand before the 
soul, and to stare at it, so long will this agony continue ; 
and unless memory will submit to forgetfulness, there is no 
escape. It is not, then, the future that remorse jegards, 
but the past — the irreparable past. Fear, then, is in no 
sense an element of remorse. 

But before we proceed to classify, let us define. The 
element with which we are dealing is fear ; we will define 
it. We must, then, in the first place, suppose the separate 
branches of the human consciousness to be at least some- 
what developed, for otherwise the various elements entering 
into these unities will not make themselves felt and known. 
In order to describe a fact of consciousness, of course we 
must in the first place be conscious of it. Nor can we un- 
derstand and recognize such a fact when described, unless 
upon looking into ourselves we there perceive it. 

Supposing, then, the three grand elements of human 
consciousness ordinarily developed. On directing the 
mind's eye upon the facts which pass before it, we ob- 
serve the following. In addition to, and distinct from 
all these facts which we have noted as pertaining to 
the moral consciousness, we observe what may be termed 
an apprehensiveness in the soul. The circumstances under 
which this condition makes itself most sensibly felt, are 
those in which the soul is forced to fix its eye upon the 
subject of death. Let this subject but present itself before 
the mind, and force itself upon the attention,- and at once 
there ensues an uneasiness; icy tremors thrill throughout 
the frame; death, the grim Gorgon, fixes its stony gaze 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 47 

upon the soul, and at once it is petrified. The whole sys- 
tem sympathizes ; in many cases the whole man is paralyzed. 
Of course, this is an extreme case ; nevertheless, in all cases 
the symptoms are distressing. And though the soul may not 
always be panic-stricken in the presence of death, still, pro- 
vided its moral consciousness be only ordinarily developed, 
under such conditions, it will ever be disturbed. Nor does 
it require the actual presence of death to produce these 
effects. Without it, still the soul is disturbed ; the future 
makes it afraid ; dim forebodings of evil flit across its vision ; 
it cannot look forward with any assurance ; there is a mys- 
tery about the future, and in that mystery there is something 
that frightens, and causes the soul to shut its eyes in dread. 
Thus all life-long the soul is haunted by a phantom, a hor- 
ror, dim and undefined, and when faced, discovered to be a 
grim reality ; so in life the soul is disturbed and uneasy in 
view of the future, and when death brings it face to face 
with the object of its fear, it is paralyzed. We have seen 
that no such fact as this is to be found in the circle of 
psychical facts contained in the moral consciousness. It 
must therefore be found under the head of some other 
branch of humaft consciousness. 

Fear, as a psychical phenomenon, a fact in the human con- 
sciousness, has two roots ; it is a result springing from the 
co-operation of two distinct causes. And these two causes 
are to be found in the separate elemental psychical condi- 
tions of the moral and religious consciousness. On the one 
hand there is the consciousness of having frequently and 
wilfully offered violence to the force of moral obligation ; 
there will often flash upon the mind the recollection of in- 
excusable deeds ; there looms up before the mind's reflect- 
ive perception a gloomy mass of moral blackness ; when 
crime has been perpetrated, it too comes flashing back in its 
lurid light; the mass grows darker, and ominous thunders 



48 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

come muttering through the soul ; and when it looks 
back upon the gloom, and then turning its gaze, looks for- 
ward towards the future, towards death and the hereafter, 
then, provided on the other hand it be conscious of God, 
it is afraid. The other root, then, to this psychical pro- 
duct is the consciousness of God. The facts of the moral 
consciousness give us remorse, and nothing more ; and that 
regards the past, and not the future. Properly, remorse is 
the punishment annexed to moral unfaithfulness. The man 
who resists his conscious force of moral obligation brings 
this punishment upon himself. If the circumstances be 
such that the force resisted is slight, then the punishment 
entailed goes no further than what is known as regret ; but 
if it be crime that is perpetrated, then comes remorse in its 
fullest sense. The force resisted is great ; the entailed con- 
sequence is proportional. Sensuality entails upon the body, 
as its consequence and punishment, bodily pain. Immo- 
rality entails upon the soul, as its consequence, spiritual 
pain ; and this consequence or punishment, varies, from the 
slightest, to the most intense spiritual agony. But all this 
is distinct from fear. In the one case, we have a conse- 
quence already suffered ; in the other, a consequence ap- 
prehended. Add to the recollection of past misdeeds the 
consciousness of God, and at once you give rise to the 
psychical fact of fear. Man transfers over to the Deity, in 
conceiving of Him, the moral idea which he derives from 
his moral self-consciousness. Conscious of Him as one 
who impels towards the same course of conduct as the force 
of moral obligation does, as of one who is in sympathy 
with the dictates of his moral nature, and who therefore 
loves the good and hates the evil, man feels that God and 
his moral nature are in unison, and that therefore when he 
resists the one, he has done the same to the other. Taking 
this state of things into consideration — namely, man's con- 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 49 

sciousness of God, his conception of Him, that this God 
has a moral character, who hates evil, and cannot look 
upon iniquity : add to this man's consciousness of his own 
immoral condition, that he has often resisted, and done 
violence to the moral force of his nature ; that his conduct 
has been wilful and inexcusable ; that already, when me- 
mories of past misdeeds, perhaps of crimes, come over him, 
he feels their consequences in the agonies of remorse which 
fasten upon his soul ; — take all these facts of the moral and 
religious consciousness together, and at once we have before 
us the roots and causes of that apprehension which man 
feels when he looks forward to death and the future. Now 
it is evident, that, the more vivid the consciousness of God, 
and the more sensitive the force of moral obligation, the 
more acute will be the psychical sensation of fear; the 
more religious and more morally sensitive a man is, the 
more apprehensive he will be as to the future. 

Let there be an adequate conception of God as Holy, a 
vivid consciousness of Him, and a clear knowledge of the 
moral law, and then, evidently, unless the practice corre- 
sponds with the knowledge, there must and will be deep ap- 
prehension as to the future. Fear will be acute ; death will 
be dreadful ; the soul will be unhappy. Fear, then, has two 
roots : the one we find to be the consciousness of God ; 
the other, the moral consciousness. Three elements go to 
constitute it: first, a consciousness of God, more or less 
vivid ; second, a knowledge of God's character, and of the 
Divine law j and third, a consciousness of having wilfully 
and inexcusably resisted the moral force within, and of 
having thus wilfully disobeyed God. Here, then, we find 
the point where culpability or guilt is to be found ; and it is 
this consciousness of guilt in the presence of the Deity 
that creates fear, and so renders the soul afraid of God, of 
the future, and of death. 

5 D 



CHAPTER IV. 

SACRIFICE. 

AN analysis of the moral consciousness gives us the 
psychical fact of guilt. In guilt the soul becomes 
conscious of its ill desert ; that is, that it ought to suffer ; 
is conscious of deserving punishment. This state of mind, 
taken in conjunction with the consciousness of God as the 
Holy One and the Just, produces fear ; and so we have in 
the next place before us a psychical fact, the fear of God. 
The soul in which the fact of guilt is developed cannot, as 
we have seen, but recognize God as Koly and just, and 
therefore must inevitably fear Him. Thus we have reached 
a point where another fact in the religious consciousness 
makes itself known. Guilty fear of God in its turn pro- 
duces anxiety, and desire to propitiate, and this desire 
terminates in sacrifice. Sacrifice is the act performed by the 
soul in its effort to propitiate a Deity of whom, from a con- 
sciousness of guilt, it is afraid. The leading thought con- 
tained in the idea of sacrifice is satisfaction — satisfaction 
made to the demands of justice. By a natural process it 
has transmitted this attribute over to the Deity, and can- 
not but look upon him as the vindicator of justice, and 
therefore the avenger of injustice. As such, then, the soul 
recognizes Him, and is afraid of Him. Again, not only 
is the Deity the vindicator of justice, but as a personal be- 
ing He is the Just and Holy One. He hates the evil ; in- 
justice offends Him and provokes His wrath. The guilty 
soul feels that God is offended and angry with it, is con- 
•scious that justly it deserves His wrath and indignation ; 
hence the necessity for propitiation, the leading point of 

50 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 51 

which is an effort to appease, to allay a just indignation, to 
quench wrath. Sacrifice is this effort. In it the guilty soul, 
in the hope of appeasing the wrath of God, renders to Him 
such satisfaction as is deemed most proper, just, and accept- 
able. The effort is to turn away wrath ; the method em- 
ployed is by rendering a supposed satisfaction to justice. 
Sacrifice is, then, the effort to appease wrath by the satis- 
faction of justice j thus, two ideas are embodied, that of 
satisfaction to justice, and that of turning away wrath ; the 
first is subordinate and subsidiary to the second. It is im- 
possible for the guilty soul to feel comfortable in the pres- 
ence of the Deity without a sacrifice ; the forces within will 
not admit of it. Let the soul become conscious of its 
moral guilt, — let it but recognize the justice and holiness of 
a conscious Deity, — let these two parallel facts be but devel- 
oped in the human consciousness, — and it will be found im- 
possible to bring the two, God and the soul, into contact 
with each other without this coupling link of sacrifice. 

Sacrifice is, then, an act, — a result whose roots run 
deep down into the heart. As an act, it is performed 
by way of satisfaction to the demands of justice. In 
the Moral sense the soul becomes conscious of its culpa- 
bility. It feels guilty, feels that it owes some satisfaction to 
justice for what it has done. Sacrifice is that satisfaction, a 
proof and a witness of the soul's recognition of its guilt. 
But such an act is performed with an object. It is not 
merely a condemnatory act meant only to express the con- 
sciousness and recognition of guilt; there is an end in 
view, and the act is but the means to that end. To propi- 
tiate, to turn away the wrath of a just and holy God, is the 
end in view ; this is the motive, the inducement that gives 
rise to the act. 

First, then, as to the act ; what is it ? The very essence 
of the act is suffering, and necessarily so. Guilt, as we 



52 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

have seen, is a fact of the Moral consciousness. In it the 
soul recognizes and feels its culpability. This in itself is a 
state of pain. Here ends the matter, so far as concerns this 
branch of the consciousness. But the same person who 
suffers as culpable is at the same time conscious of a God. 
Conceiving of Him, he naturally attributes to Him justice ; 
then looking upon Him as the vindicator of right and* the 
avenger of wrong, the soul becomes disturbed ; there arises 
upon it the dim foreboding of a future reckoning with the 
just and holy God. Guilt is suffering, a present one ; but 
there is another future one to which it points ; like the alarm- 
bell ringing out its loud alarum through the wild night, 
it warns the slumbering soul of an approaching fiery doom. 
Guilt, then, though a present fact, points to a future. 
It is, then, a present painful reminder of a painful future ; 
in fine, of a future punishment. Again, the soul conscious 
of guilt not only apprehends punishment, but besides this 
it fears God, is troubled at the thought of Him, feels that 
He is angry with it, and justly so. Here, then, comes in 
an anxiety and desire to propitiate Him, and this desire 
gives rise to sacrifice. It is not the desire to prevent future 
punishment that creates sacrifice ; it is rather the desire to 
propitiate, to turn away God's anger; the soul seeks by a 
sacrifice to pacify God, and so to reconcile Him to it — 
that so He may be induced to act towards it, not as an 
enemy, but as a friend. In it the person of God is viewed 
rather than His attributes; it is a personal act, directed 
towards a personal Being. The method of the act, on the 
other hand, has reference principally to the Divine attri- 
butes, its prime object in this respect being to satisfy the 
claims of Divine justice. Examined from a psychological 
standpoint, the necessity for some expiatory or sacrificial 
act is found to exist in the soul. This necessity very natu- 
rally manifests itself, and so gives us the external overt act 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 53 

of sacrifice. Psychological investigation therefore brings 
to light a psychical fact. Observation brings to light the 
historical fact of sacrifice. So general, so universal is the 
practice of this rite among mankind, that it is evident it 
must spring from a necessity in human nature. The his- 
torical, then, confirms the psychological. 

The manner in which this rite is practised next comes 
under observation. In this respect there is variety. If 
man was unconscious of his guilt, would the rite of sacri- 
fice exist? If unconscious of guilt, necessarily he will 
feel himself to be innocent ; as such, he will not be afraid 
of God ; would he, under such circumstances, offer sacri- 
fice? Evidently not. Yet even under such conditions 
some religious rite would exist ; man would still feel that 
he ought in some way to express his reverence and his sense 
of allegiance to God ; some act of homage he would feel to 
be proper. As expressive of this, we might anticipate that 
he would offer to God something that was at the same time 
symbolic and valuable. Thus, in depriving himself of that 
which is valued, and giving it back to God, he would ex- 
press his love, and at the same time perform an act of 
homage. The first-fruits of the earth would be, as an offer- 
ing, adapted to such a purpose. Such would be the natural 
course of a creature not conscious of any guilt in its wor- 
ship of God ; such, the Scriptures inform us, was Cain's 
mode of worship. Had he only been an innocent crea- 
ture, it would have been proper enough. Here, .then, we 
have, not a sacrifice, but an offering. An innocent crea- 
ture would have no need, a guilty creature, unconscious of 
his guilt, would feel no need, of a sacrifice. The whole 
thing springs out of guilt ; it is the expression and the proof 
of man's consciousness of his guilt. An innocent crea- 
ture, or a creature unconscious of his guilt, would never be 
found offering what is, strictly, sacrifice. Guilt, inasmuch 
5* 



54 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

as it concedes the desert of punishment, demands suffering. 
In the state of conscious culpability it is allowed that there 
is a demand for retribution — that such a demand is just — 
that it ought to be satisfied — that it is a debt that ought to 
be paid — that it must be paid ere justice can be satisfied, 
and so the soul released. The guilty soul admits, then, 
that without shedding of blood there is no remission of 
sin. It is absolutely necessary, then, by the admission of 
the soul itself, that in order to the expiation of guilt, suffer- 
ing by way of punishment be undergone. To the soul 
that sins, this evidently would seem to be the proper an- 
swer to such a question. Is such, then, the demand of the 
psychical consciousness ? Does there arise in the guilty soul 
a conscious necessity of self-sacrifice in order to the expi- 
ation of guilt ? Does the soul feel, that, before it can feel at 
peace, as having expiated its guilt, it must voluntarily sub- 
mit itself to suffering? And if so, who in such a case is to 
administer the punishment ? Evidently the guilty one him- 
self, or some one of his fellow-men. Here, then, we have 
the origin of all forms of penance, and the grounds of all 
the forms of civil punishment as inflicted by society. In 
the one case the guilty one admits his desert of punish- 
ment, is anxious to expiate his guilt. He therefore under- 
takes to punish himself, he starves or scourges or mutilates 
himself, inflicts upon himself some form of punishment, all 
in order to expiate his guilt. Here, then, we are at the 
root of all those self-imposed forms of suffering termed 
penances. The great difficulty in all such cases is about the 
rule of apportionment. The scale of the *'lex talionis" 
would seem to be the best that could be adopted : an eye 
for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, is the nearest approx- 
imation that can be made to the rule of absolute justice : it 
is, in fact, absolute justice. But, then, this rule could not 
be carried into practice but in a very limited number of 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 55 

cases. How much, and what kind of suffering must a guilty 
man inflict upon himself before he can expiate his guilt ? 
and how long must he suffer before the expiation is sufficient? 
To these questions the unfortunate penitent has never found 
a satisfactory answer. Luther found none ; there is none 
according to Heathenism, none according to Rome. There 
is one according to the Gospel of Christ. The reason why 
none has been found, is, because, looking to the facts of 
psychical consciousness, there is but one — one which the 
soul would fain, and does generally, overlook. The suffer- 
ing or punishment which guilt demands in order to the 
satisfaction of justice is, as to its duration, eternal j as to 
its intensity, that distributive in conjunction with retribu- 
tive justice must apportion in accordance with the gravity 
of the offence. Self-inflicted tortures can never bring peace 
to the conscience, because there is a testimony within that 
the punishment of sin is eternal. Until the end of that 
period is reached, which of course is never, guilt will be- 
speak an unsatisfied justice, a debt uncancelled, a punish- 
ment still due ; and so self-torture would have to continue 
forever and ever, and still the debt would be unpaid, the 
guilt unexpiated. As to the form of self-torture adopted 
by the penitent, that must necessarily be wholly arbitrary ; 
there is nothing within that would demand one form rather 
than another. The demand of guilt is for suffering, simply 
suffering ; the manner or form of the suffering is not indi- 
cated. No doubt there is a fitness in such an adaptation, 
a fitness which is administered in the *'lex talionis," and 
which distributive justice will finally make evident. But 
as yet, in the fact of guilt this apportionraent is not indi- 
cated ; the demand is in the gross, not yet eliminated, and 
that demand is, by way of punishment, for suffering eter- 
nal suffering. 

In the case of the penitent, he is at the same time the 



56 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

sacrifice and the priest. (A priest is, strictly speaking, one 
who offers sacrifice.) The two things maybe separated; 
the penitent may employ some one as his priest, some one 
who shall scourge and torture him. Still the penitent is a 
sacrifice by which justice is to be satisfied, and so God pro- 
pitiated. Society separates these two things. It in itself 
assumes the priesthood, takes the knife and sacrifices, a vic- 
tim upon the altar of justice, the social criminal. Society 
in its organization assumes on this earth the place of God. 
Transgression of its laws, though not, strictly speaking, 
sin — for it is possible that society may pass immoral laws, 
— is rather crime. Society, occupying the seat of justice, 
assumes its sword, appoints its officials; as social priest 
it uses the knife, and sacrifices the criminal as a victim 
upon its altars. Society in its judicial administration of 
justice is but a shadow of the process under the moral law 
of the universe. And here one point is worthy of notice. 
The social offender in expiation of his guilt is not expected 
to sacrifice himself; society has its official priesthood to 
whom it has delegated the power to offer sacrifice. The 
transgressor is the victim. Society having judged and con- 
demned, — having done what God does and manifests in 
the moral consciousness, — executes. By distributive justice 
the penalty is apportioned to the offence. The organ of 
society, acting in its capacity of priesthood, inflicts the 
penalty. The victim is sacrificed, and so atones, socially 
speaking, for his offence. His social guilt is thus expiated ; 
and unless the penalty is capital, he is restored free again 
to the community. Thus crime or social guilt can be ex- 
piated, for it is just what society by its laws makes it. But 
moral guilt is indelible; its penalty is eternal, and can 
never be satisfied by the offender. Thus when a civil law 
is also moral, though the offender be in this respect cleared, 
and restored a free man to society, still the brand, the morai 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 57 

Stain will remain unexpiated, indelible, save by eternal pun- 
ishment ; and therefore never,— always, saving the one and 
only way. 

This separation of priest and sacrifice, of him who offers 
from him who is offered, points to the fact that he who 
inflicts a penalty is to be separated from him upon whom 
it is inflicted. In moral cases, apart from the laws of 
society, there is no one to inflict the penalty. Man ■ must 
not punish himself; God alone can legitimately do it : and 
to this truth the facts of moral consciousness bear witness. 
Thus guilt, while it admits its obligation to justice for pun- 
ishment, at the same time testifies that God is the only 
proper one to inflict that punishment. This prerogative the 
penitent takes out of the hands of God ; hence all the con- 
fusion and darkness of the mind in this connection, and 
hence the unsatisfactoriness of all such self-inflicted tor- 
tures. And not only does the individual assume the retributive, 
but also the distributive justice of the Almighty— prematurely, 
inadequately, unwisely, — he torments himself, and all to 
no avail ; guilt still continues to cry out for vengeance ; it 
will not be atoned. In guilt, then, as a psychical fact, the 
soul recognizes its obligation to undergo punishment, but at 
the same time it recognizes the fact that God alone is the one 
to inflict it. Here, then, comes in the doctrine of vicarious 
atonement. Psychology cannot account for its existence. 
Psychology shows us a want, but not its supply. It gives us 
a penalty recognized as deserved ; it gives us God as the 
only proper one to inflict it ; it gives us a dim foreboding, a 
nervous expectation that He will inflict it ; it gives us an in- 
tellectual necessity that He must inflict it ; it gives us there- 
fore a fearful looking-for of vengeance and fiery indigna- 
tion looming up in the distance ; and here psychology stops. 
What will God do under the circumstances? that is the 
question. By the light of nature, vengeance only can be 
anticipated. But still there is a possibility. God cannot 



58 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

change, justice is inexorable ; but still there may .be hope, 
for God is infinite, who can* know Him? This possibility 
under Revelation has been realized. God has not changed, 
his justice is as inexorable as ever, nevertheless a way of 
escape has been opened. That way is through the vica- 
rious sacrifice of the Son of God for mankind. How God 
would act under the circumstances would of course be a 
matter of revelation and of history. It is impossible that 
the idea of vicarious sacrifice should have naturally arisen 
in the human mind ; it must, in its very first stages of de- 
velopment, have been the subject of Revelation. 

Psychical observation leaves the soul in a state of want. 
It finds it anxious to propitiate the Deity, but wholly at a 
loss how this is to be effected. The voice of justice in the 
soul, speaking in the consciousness of guilt, admits that it 
has been grossly outraged, and that a satisfaction is neces- 
sary before it can be hushed. It is an admission recorded 
in the very consciousness of the soul, that until the claims 
of justice are fairly met and satisfied, — and that satisfac- 
torily to the soul's sense of justice, — until then there can- 
not be any peace within. Guilt is but the voice of justice 
in the soul, a living, standing, vital protest of justice, never 
to be quenched until its claims be satisfactorily settled. It 
is the recoil of justice upon itself, accusing and condemn- 
ing. To readjust the equilibrium, a counter shock must be 
experienced ; satisfaction to justice furnishes the counter 
shock. Given this, and the moral equilibrium is restored, 
justice acquits, guilt is satisfied, expiated, ceases to be a 
fact in the consciousness. 

Supposing, then, man to be laboring under a sense of 
guilt, it is evident that the equilibrium of his moral con- 
sciousness cannot be restored until his sense of justice be 
fully satisfied. And this cannot be, by man's own admis- 
sion, but by the payment of an eternal duration of suffer- 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 59 

ing, and therefore, confessedly, never. This is what it 
would require, by man's own admission, to satisfy his own 
innate sense of justice. Confessedly, according to the facts 
of his own consciousness, he can never, being once guilty, 
cease to feel guilty ; his sense of justice can never be satis- 
fied, hence he must continue to protest against himself, and 
experience the sense of guilt. Man therefore, confessedly, 
can never propitiate and be reconciled to himself. Nothing 
that he can do can ever expiate his guilt. To reconcile a 
man to himself is, from the nature of the case, an impossi- 
bility. He can never satisfactorily to himself expiate his 
guilt; and conscious of this in his own case, he infers the 
same thing of the Almighty. Justice is but justice, to whom- 
soever it may belong. Essentially, it is absolute : it is in- 
carnate in man ; it is divine in God. It is but the same 
quality in both beings. Let this quality but be aroused, 
and it will act in man just as it does in God ; what it con- 
demns, God does ; what it approves, and when it acquits, 
God does likewise : man was created in the image of God. 
Justice is the same both in God and man. When man, 
then, in his state of guilt, judges his case as irremediable, 
it is but natural he should conclude it appears in the same 
light to God. If I condemn myself, it is but natural to 
conclude — seeing, too, that God is of absolute justice — 
that He also condemns me ; and since, confessedly, I must 
continue to condemn myself to all eternity, seeing that I 
can never expiate my guilt, God too must do likewise. See- 
ing, therefore, I can never propitiate myself, of course, I 
can never propitiate God. He must, then, remain unrecon- 
ciled to me, and His wrath must abide upon me forever. 
Here the soul pauses ; it can go no further. Being guilty, 
it can only look to itself as the proper one to offer satisfac- 
tion to justice ; and provided the end was to reconcile one's 
self, this would in fact be the proper object to look to. But 



60 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

inasmuch as the object is to reconcile God to the soul, it is 
possible that the satisfaction may come from some other 
source. If I am to expiate my own guilt, to my own satis- 
faction, certainly I myself must be the sufferer. I must 
undergo punishment, and not some one else ; it is the soul 
that sinneth that must die. Never can I feel that I have 
atoned for my guilt, until I myself have borne such an 
amount of suffering as I feel to be my due. I, by self-in- 
flicted suffering, can never satisfy my sense of justice, and 
so expiate my guilt. Nor does it any more appear how 
God by the infliction of suffering can satisfy His sense of 
justice. In the first case, the suffering is self-inflicted ; in 
the second, it is inflicted by God. It was in the one case 
insufficient to satisfy the human sense of justice; in the 
second, it must prove equally so with the Divine. It is 
not possible, either with God or man, that human suffering 
can ever satisfy the demands of justice, and so expiate guilt. 
This the soul feels, and when it thinks, sees. And here it 
must pause ; the case seems hopeless ; nothing but a Revela- 
tion can clear the matter up, and give any hope. The doc- 
trine of an eternal punishment is natural — a necessity, 
springing out of the facts of consciousness. Given but the 
consciousness of guilt, and you have also eternal punish- 
ment. It requires no revelation to make this known ; it 
stands already revealed in the facts of the moral conscious- 
ness. The doctrine of a vicarious sacrifice is a revelation, 
and necessarily so ; man could never have imagined it. 

Self-sacrifice, in the sense of self-inflicted suffering, is 
natural to mankind, but at the same time it is unreasonable. 
Springing out of a sense of guilt, it is the effort of the 
guilty one, by satisfying his sense of justice, to expiate his 
guilt ; it is the effort of the guilt-distressed soul to obtain 
rest. It may operate even apart from the belief in a God. 
Man has within him a sense of justice. The resistance to, 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 6l 

and his trampling upon this sense of right, arouses this prin- 
ciple. At once it asserts itself, condemning, and calling 
for vengeance. Here, then, arises the fact of guilt ; and 
man, apart from all thought of God, in order to become 
reconciled to himself, will often be induced to attempt ex- 
piation. He will inflict torture upon himself, seeking to 
satisfy the demands of justice within, and so to still its cry. 
The effort is selfish, but it is real. Such an act cannot 
properly be termed sacrifice, for sacrifice seeks to satisfy 
God's justice, and to propitiate Him ; here, on the con- 
trary, man seeks to satisfy his justice, and to propitiate 
himself. All such self-willed efforts must prove fruitless ; 
guilt can never thus be expiated; man's own sense of jus- 
tice will never recognize itself as satisfied ; guilt, as a fact 
of consciousness, will ever remain. Man can never, there- 
fore, become reconciled even to himself, still less to God, 
by such self-imposed suffering. It is to be observed that 
there is a natural satisfaction experienced by a guilty per- 
son in suffering ; he feels that he is making some amends 
for his offence. Of course, he must have hope ; he must, 
therefore, think that the time will come when he shall have 
expiated his guilt. But the same feeling which demands 
suffering now, will demand it forever. Let a man but con- 
tinue to eye his crimes or his offences, and he will find that 
his guilt will continue to stare him in the face ; no matter 
how much he torture himself, still every time his offence 
presents itself before him, he will blame himself, will see 
how inexcusable was his crime, will feel that he deserves 
punishment. And all this, because his sense of justice is 
not yet satisfied, his guilt is unexpiated. Such must con- 
tinue to be the state of affairs to all eternity. Man cannot 
expiate guilt to his own satisfaction ; of course, therefore, 
not to God's. 

Self-torture, apart from any consideration of God, is, we 
6 



62 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

■ have said, not sacrifice. Self-torture with reference to God, 
and to propitiate Him : nor is this properly sacrifice. True, 
it is self-sacrifice, it is a religious act ; but still it has not in 
it that element which lies at the very bottom of the idea of 
sacrifice. Both acts have reference to the Deity. The ob- 
ject of both is, by satisfying His justice, to turn away His 
wrath, and propitiate Him; but the method employed in 
the two cases is different. In the one case there is self- 
sacrifice ; in the other, the sacrifice is vicarious. The very 
essence of sacrifice is in its being vicarious ; and by vica- 
rious we mean this, namely: that for the guilty party a 
substitute is provided, and upon that substitute, instead of 
the principal, that punishment which the principal deserved 
is inflicted. The substitute suff"ers, then, instead of the 
principal. 

It is impossible that such a process as this should ever 
have entered into the human mind. It is natural enough 
for a man to feel that he ought to sufi'er for his own sins. 
But that some other should take his place, that a brute 
should be substituted for him, and by its sufi"erings should 
expiate his guilt, such a thought could never have occurred 
in the brain of natural man. The natural view on this sub- 
ject has always found exponents. There never was a time 
that man was not found trying to expiate his guilt by means 
of self-sacrifice. The great mass, in whom the conscious- 
ness of guilt is imperfectly, sometimes not at all developed, 
have always been indifferent ; they sacrifice nothing, they 
make no effort to expiate guilt, because they feel none. But 
at the same time there has always been found a large class 
acting otherwise. Such a class, conscious of guilt, and 
religious, are anxious to expiate the former, and to propi- 
tiate the Deity. This is the religious portion of mankind, 
in whom the consciousness of God and of guilt is devel- 
oped. And while we predicate such a development of a 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 63 

portion, we do not deny it in the whole ; only in some it 
is more developed than in others, and of course becomes 
more conspicuous and more active. All men by nature 
have the elements of religious and moral character ; only in 
many cases, among large portions of mankind, such ele- 
ments are suppressed, undeveloped, nay, sometimes almost 
extinguished. When, then, alongside of the consciousness 
of God, the consciousness of moral guilt is developed, 
there we will find men trying to propitiate the Deity ; and 
the way which they naturally will adopt will be that of self- 
torture. Hermits, Ascetics, Anchorites, Stylites, Hindoo 
mystics, Mohammedan dervishes, Roman Catholic peni- 
tents, Protestant ritualists and legalists, all are engaged in 
the same business. All trying to propitiate the Deity by 
some species of self-torture, all acting very unreasonably, 
yet naturally ; obeying the impulses of their nature, seek- 
ing rest, and yet, because it is an impossibility, finding 
none ; many in this hopeless pursuit going so far as to kill 
themselves, as many a skeleton on many a wild waste, in 
many a damp cave and solitary convent or monastic cell, 
might witness; as the car of Juggernaut, upon whose 
wheels there is human blood, might testify. Yes, there are 
many martyrs in this cause ; there were many living expo- 
nents, now dead ones, but whose blood still bears witness 
that fondly they imagined, that, by the shedding of their 
own blood, there might be obtained remission of sin. 

Now, alongside of this practice of self-sacrifice, we find 
that of vicarious sacrifice. The first, we say, was man's 
device ; the second is God's. Man practised it, but it 
must have been a revelation. The demand which self-sac- 
rifice ought to supply is natural. It is the effort of the 
consciously guilty soul, by expiating its guilt, to propitiate 
the Deity. The way in which it was attempted to supply 
this demand was irrational, hence it proved fruitless. The 



64 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

moral consciousness recognizes the fact that guilt can be 
expiated only by suffering. What kind of suffering, how 
long, and by whom inflicted, man, in his anxiety to effect 
this purpose, presumes to judge. In doing so he goes 
astray. The only pain he can inflict is bodily; how severe 
it must be, he must decide for himself, and it must be in- 
flicted by himself; for society takes cognizance only of 
offences against its laws. As to the intensity of pain to be 
self-inflicted, it must be impossible to ascertain such a point 
satisfactorily. Then, as to how long, if reason and the 
facts of consciousness were consulted, it would very soon 
be seen that it must be forever. Hence it was, and still is 
felt, that all such methods of expiating guilt are unsatis- 
factory. Man is right in concluding that he, the sinner, is 
the proper one to suffer ; but he is wrong in supposing that 
there can ever be an end of suffering — wrong in supposing 
he can make an end of guilt — wrong in taking justice into 
his own hands, and in supposing he is the proper person to 
inflict upon himself the penalty of sin. If these points 
had been recognized, man would have seen the folly of all 
self-willed efforts for the expiation of guilt. He would have 
been found feeling a necessity, but seeing no way of sup- 
plying it, would have been found recognizing his deserts, 
and at the same time his inability to meet them. And it is 
to this state of mind that the institution of sacrifice must 
have appealed. So soon as the soul feels the possibility 
of meeting the demands of guilt ; so long as it imagines 
that it has a way of doing this, just so long will it be found 
self-dependent, busily engaged in the business of satisfaction. 
Let all such possibility be exploded ; let it be seen to be 
impossible for the soul, of itself, by any means to expiate 
guilt, and what follows ? Either despair, or, in its agony, a 
cry unto God for help ; either despair, or a turning away 
from one's self, and a turning unto God. To such a state 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 6$ 

of mind, sacrifice, a revelation from God, appeals. Man, 
in his conscious inability, appeals to God. God answers 
by instituting sacrifice. 

Sacrifice, in its primary form of institution, was a signifi- 
cant hint ; in the way of a hint, it suggested that God had 
on hand some purpose of expiating guilt. It suggested to 
man, in his condition of hopeless inability to meet the de- 
mands of justice, that God himself would take the matter up ; 
that what man could not do. He himself would do for man. 
And not only was it a hint as to such a purpose, but it was, 
moreover, significant of the manner in which the purpose 
was to be accomplished. Here, for the first time, we find 
suggested the vicarious idea — the possibility of a substitute 
suffering in place of the offender. Sacrifice was, then, in 
brief, a significant hint of God's purpose of expiating guilt 
by a vicarious sacrifice ; or, since it is of the very nature 
of sacrifice to be vicarious, we might say at once, by a sac- 
rifice. Of course, it is not possible that the blood of bulls 
and goats could expiate guilt, nor was it ever so intended. 
Sacrifice never meant this. It was simply a rite instituted 
by Revelation, a representative, symbolic rite ; a hint sig- 
nificant of a Divine purpose, vividly exhibiting in the man- 
ner of its execution the way in which the Divine purpose 
was to be fulfilled. Given to man, it must have operated 
in the way of a promise; holding out a hope, and at the 
same time indicating the manner in which that hope was to 
be realized. Until the fulfilment of the Divine promise, 
man must wait in expectation ; and though his sense of guilt 
would remain consciously unexpiated, yet he must patiently 
await the development of the Divine purpose, watching 
carefully its progress, faithfully trusting in God, that He 
would, in His good time, fulfil His promise of expiating 
guilt. The thing proposed by God, and significantly hinted 
to man in the institution of the rite of sacrifice, is not pri- 
6* E 



66 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

marily to satisfy man's sense of justice, but His own. The 
demands of man's justice and of God's justice for the sat- 
isfaction of guilt are identically the same, namely, eternal 
punishment. In the institution of sacrifice, God signifies 
His purpose of satisfying these demands in another way, 
and that way, as suggested by the rite of sacrifice, is to be 
a vicarious one ; that is, there is to be a substitute for man, 
and that substitute is to bear the punishment that man de- 
serves. All this is plainly contained and exhibited in this 
rite. An animal is taken, the sins of the off"ender are 
confessed, his hand is laid upon the head of the victim ; 
symbolically, it is guilty, and as such, it is slain ; it is pun- 
ished ; it dies as a sacrifice for sin ; the guilt of the offender 
is expiated'; God is propitiated ; God is reconciled ; there 
is an atonement. Here, then, we have in detail, symbol- 
ically represented, what was to be accomplished when the 
transaction here referred to should actually take place. 
What that transaction was to be, could not of course, in the 
first place, be known. Its main points were, however, 
sketched off in the rite of sacrifice, and the substance must 
correspond with the shadow. The great point indicated 
was, that there was to be a sacrifice — a vicarious one. 
Some living being was to be substituted for man ; bearing 
man's guilt, it was to bear the penalty laid upon it by God 
himself, namely, death. Such a sacrifice was to prove sat- 
isfactory to the demands of Divine justice, was to propi- 
tiate God, and reconcile Him to mankind. Such is the 
prophecy contained in the rite of sacrifice. Such, in its 
main points, was the plan by which God proposed to make 
satisfaction to His justice for man's guilt. The rite in itself 
did not effect anything as to the expiation of guilt, either 
with man or with God ; it simply exhibited the fact that 
God proposed to satisfy guilt, and symbolized the manner 
of that satisfaction. 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 6/ 

The rite of sacrifice was, then, a standing symbolic me- 
morial of a Divine purpose — a purpose of interfering in 
man's behalf, in order to the expiation of guilt. The de- 
tails of the rite symbolically represented the manner in 
which this purpose was to be effected. Observe, then, this 
point carefully, namely, that in itself the rite effected noth- 
ing, was not intended to effect anything ; its object was to 
point to that which was to effect something — to a real 
transaction, in which there was to be a real vicarious sacri- 
fice, a substitute which should really bear the guilt of man- 
kind, and really suffer the penalty of sin in its place : a 
transaction in which a real satisfaction to the Divine justice 
was to be made, man's guilt really expiated, God really 
propitiated and reconciled. The rite of sacrifice effected 
none of these things ; it only indicated and symbolically 
represented them. To lose sight of this point is to miscon- 
ceive the whole meaning of the rite of sacrifice. To sup- 
pose that, in that rite, the immolation of brute beasts really 
satisfied the Divine justice and propitiated God, is a mis- 
take ; one, however, which we find man, in his historical 
religious development, very soon making : a mistake which 
is by no means infrequent even at the present day. Half, 
or, rather, two thirds of Christendom now make it. We 
find the same thing in the Roman Catholic Mass. We 
find, too, the same thing among Protestants, in certain 
ritualistic views of the Holy Communion. There is a ten- 
dency in human nature to adopt the doctrine of the opus 
operatum. 

The sacrifice of Jesus Christ upon the cross expiated, we 
are told, the guilt of the world. In the ceremony of the 
Holy Communion we have before us a standing symbolic 
memorial of this event. The details of the ceremony rep- 
resent the particulars of that transaction. But yielding to 
this tendency, this rite ceases to be symbolic and repre- 



68 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

sentative, ceases to be a memorial ; it becomes the event 
itself: the bread and wine become the real body and blood 
of Christ ; the ceremony becomes a real sacrifice ; an altar 
is erected, and Christ is really offered up upon it, visibly, 
in the eyes of the faithful. And this sacrifice is supposed 
to be really efficient, and to expiate the guilt of all who 
participate in it. The same mistake is made here as was in 
former days among the ancients ; in both, there is a rite, a 
ceremony divinely instituted. In the one case it was a sac- 
rifice ; in the other, it is the memorial of a sacrifice. Sac- 
rifice, though real, was only a memorial. Backwards, it 
was indicative of a Divine purpose ; forwards, it indicated 
the way in which that purpose was to be effected. It was 
a memorial, then, since it served to remind man of what 
God proposed to do. It was a symbolic memorial, inas- 
much as it indicated how that purpose was to be fulfilled. 
It gave guilty man hope ; it encouraged him, and taught 
him to love God as a God of mercy ; but so far as it con- 
cerned expiation of guilt, it effected nothing : man's rela- 
tion to God remained unaltered ; the purpose of God was 
all that was ; a purpose revealed in the institution of sacri- 
fice, and to which man in hope clung. 

The Holy Communion is, too, a rite, a divinely insti- 
tuted one, and, like sacrifice, it is a memorial ^ it reminds 
man, not of a purpose, but of its fulfilment — of an actual 
sacrifice offered for man, to expiate his guilt. As symbolic, 
in its details, it represents the particulars of that transaction, 
of how the expiation was effected. As a symbolic memo- 
rial, then, it serves graphically to remind man of what 
Christ has done for him — that his guilt has been expiated, 
and God propitiated and reconciled to him. To guilty 
man it brings joy; it reconciles him to God. The cere- 
mony in itself, so far as concerns expiation of guilt, effects 
nothing ; but, as a symbolic memorial, it brings peace and 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 69 

joy and love towards the God of our salvation. Let the 
rite of sacrifice cease to be recognized as a Divine reminder 
that the expiation of guilt is to be the work of God, and at 
once man will adopt it as his own. Supposing it is still re- 
garded as a Divine institution, nevertheless man adopts it 
as one of his own works ; he will use it as a sort of charm, 
supposing that thereby he can propitiate the Deity. He 
will use this memorial rite with the same spirit and with 
the same intent that he had in all his self-inflicted tortures, 
namely, with a view to the propitiation of the Deity thereby. 
It is natural, as we have seen, for man by his own works 
to seek to propitiate God. This tendency is deeply im- 
bedded in human nature. Sacrifice points to the fact that 
God himself is to effect this propitiation. But man soon 
loses this idea, and adopts it as a means whereby he is to 
effect that object. He uses it, then, as a charm, to propi- 
tiate God. Thus, sacrifice becoming a work of man, man 
feels that it ought to cost him something. Primarily, there 
is nothing of self-sacrifice in it. In its simplicity, it is to 
the unenlightened unsatisfactory. Man will introduce some 
self-sacrifice into it, so he increases the number of the vic- 
tims, makes the offering, instead of a single victim, a heca- 
tomb. And even this, though so expensive an offering, 
proving still unsatisfactory, he offers man, his fellow-man, 
as the most noble victim he can obtain — his own child, 
the thing most dear to him. Here, then, we strike the root 
of human sacrifice : it springs, originally, out of a misun- 
derstanding of a meaning of the Divine rite of sacrifice. 
It is a lapse from the Divine to the human ; man, refusing 
to let God expiate his guilt, seeks to expiate it himself. 
Sacrifice has pointed out a vicarious method of expiation ; 
man adopts it as his method, then falling back upon his 
tendency to self-torture, he combines the two, and, as a 
final and logical result, we have the rite of human sacrifice. 



70 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

The history of religion shows us that the rite of sacrifice 
did not long retain its original significance. First, it lost 
its prophetic character, ceased to remind men of God's 
purpose of expiation; then it seems to have lost in the 
minds of men its connection with God ; they forgot it was 
a Divine institution. True, they found it among them, but 
they knew not how it came there ; it was simply a fact, a 
religious ceremony handed down by tradition. Its reli- 
gious character still remained ; in fact, it had in process of 
time become the whole of worship. It had expanded and 
become the entire cultus of religion ; losing its primary 
significance as a prophetic memorial, it had become a mere 
*'opus operatum," whereby something, namely, the pro- 
pitiation of the Deity, was supposed to be immediately 
effected — a mere superstitious practice. Out of it issued 
the swarm of the heathen priesthood ; it gave them posi- 
tion and a livelihood ; it was to their interest, therefore, to 
give a fictitious importance to it. Sacrifice being supposed 
to propitiate the Deity, naturally it was thought that, the 
more costly the sacrifice, the more pleasing it would be to 
Him, the more apt to propitiate. Hence, as we have seen, 
the hecatombs of the ancients and the sacrifice of human 
beings. But still, after that the rite had been performed, 
although faith might conclude that God was propitiated, 
still a sign would be more satisfactory ; hence the examina- 
tion of the entrails of the victims, and the whole system of 
augurs and auguries. All this was for the purpose of telling 
whether the Deity was yet satisfied and propitiated. Thus 
we see how this Divine rite of sacrifice, losing its prophetic 
significance, then its original connection with God, as a 
rite of His institution, becomes at last prostituted to super- 
stitious purposes. One original Divine idea it alone re- 
tained, and that was the vicarious nature of sacrifice j and 
even this was in danger. The hecatomb showed it to be 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 7I 

adulterated. Human sacrifice shows it almost lost, for in it 
man returns again to his own natural inclination towards 
expiating guilt by self-torture. In offering a human being, 
supposing any feeling of humanity, there must be suffering ; 
in offering one's own child, the pain of the offerer must 
be intense. Herein it was felt lay the expiatory efficacy 
of the sacrifice. In such a sacrifice two elements are pre- 
sent, substitution and self-torture. The substitution was 
traditional; the self-torture or self-sacrifice was regarded 
and consciously felt to be the expiatory element. Here, 
then, we have two elements : the one the vicarious, prac- 
tised as a tradition, in itself unmeaning; the other, self- 
torture or self-sacrifice, practised naturally, and felt to be 
in its nature expiatory. In self-immolation we find the 
vicarious element to have altogether disappeared, the nat- 
ural element alone remaining. Human sacrifice must neces- 
sarily brutalize ; but this is the end, not the beginning of 
the rite. Its origin is such as we have described it. Every 
practice has its philosophy, just as every effect has its cause. 
The sacrifice of human beings by man does not spring out 
of his brutality ; that is rather an effect than a cause. It 
has two roots : the Divine rite of vicarious sacrifice, and 
the consciousness of guilt. How it grows and develops 
into this final frightful product, we have already stated. 

The point which stands out so prominently in the insti- 
tution of the rite of sacrifice as to throw all others in the 
background, is, that it is God who will provide the victim, 
God who will inflict the penalty and expiate the guilt ; that 
it is God himself, within the Godhead, who will expiate the 
guilt of sin, propitiate Himself, and reconcile mankind to 
Himself. The whole thing is to be effected in the very 
circle of the Godhead itself; man has nothing to do with 
it. This is the meaning of the rite of sacrifice, in its in- 
stitution and in its ceremonial details. After all, it was but 



72 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

a prophetic rite, symbolic, and at the same time prophetic. 
It found its fulfilment and realization in the sacrifice of 
Jesus Christ the Son of God upon the cross of Calvary. 

We are well aware that there is a form of theology widely 
prevalent which ignores the fact of sacrifice as an essential 
element in religion. According to this system, in order to 
bring the soul into a conscious state of reconciliation with 
the Deity, it is only necessary to represent Him as a God 
of infinite benevolence and love. Such a school entirely 
ignores one of the most important elements in the moral 
consciousness, namely, the consciousness of guilt. Pro- 
vided this element be not developed, it is easy enough to 
see how the soul can continue to feel comfortable in its 
consciousness of God. If there be no consciousness of 
guilt, there will of course be no sense of justice, condemn- 
ing and demanding satisfaction. Under such circum- 
stances, the soul naturally would feel a self-complacency ; 
and perhaps, under such conditions, the representation of 
the Deity only as all-benevolent might prove satisfactory, 
and would enable the soul to eye Him without fear, and 
feel comfortable in the thought of Him. But on the other 
hand, allow but a development of the consciousness of 
guilt, be it never so faint, and all will be changed. If our 
own heart condemn us, God is greater than our hearts, and 
knoweth all things. The soul, feeling the force of this ar- 
gument, becomes uneasy ; it regards the Deity as looking 
upon it with an ominous eye, and feeling guilty, it is afraid 
of Him. To a soul in such a condition, no representation 
of the Deity, however flattering, will prove satisfactory. 
Convince the intellect that God is all-benevolent, all love ; 
let the soul feel that it is irrational to be afraid of Him — 
that it is its duty to love Him — still the breach will remain 
unrepaired, and the soul, if it but candidly examine itself, 
will find that it is still alienated from God. You may per- 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 73 

haps convince a hungry man that he ought not to be hungry, 
you may get him even to ignore his hunger, still hunger 
gnaws at his vitals, and will not be satisfied until food is 
supplied. You may persuade a timid man that it is irra- 
tional to be afraid, you may so work upon him as to make 
him imagine and declare that he is not afraid, — he may 
actually believe that he is a brave man, — yet all the while 
he is a coward, liable to be frightened at any moment. The 
thing which estranges man from God is his guilt, his con- 
sciousness of guilt. No matter what character you may 
attribute to the Deity, no matter how kind and merciful 
you make Him out to be, yea, though the soul be persuaded 
this all is so, that it is wicked to distrust this, still it feels 
withal uncomfortable in the consciousness of Him. Intel- 
lectual impressions are ngt sufficient. The cause of estrange- 
ment, of disquietude with respect to God, lies not in the 
head, but in the heart. True, the heart must be reached 
through the head ; but the difficulty with which the head is 
to deal must first be rightly ascertained. A man conscious 
of guilt will not be satisfied by proofs of God's love and 
all-benevolence. You have not touched the right point to 
remove the estrangement ; you must remove its cause, must 
meet the demands of man's guilt, show it expiated, satisfy 
the demands of his sense of justice ; not until then will he 
feel comfortable in the thought of God; then, and not 
until then, will he be able to take comfort in the thought 
that God is love. The revelation of the Divine atonement 
will alone effect the reconciliation of man to God. A 
guilty conscience makes cowards of us all. The man guilty 
of crime, or of dishonorable conduct, dares not look his 
fellow-man fairly in the face. The man who has betrayed 
his friend withers with anguish under his eye. The man 
who has sinned against God, and who is conscious of it, 
feels similarly; he dares not meet the eye of God; he 
7 



74 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

writhes in anguish when he thinks of Him ; therefore he 
avoids the thought of Him, and seeks to repress that ele- 
ment of his consciousness. Speak to such an one of the 
love of God ; tell him that God is all-benevolent and all- 
merciful, and you give him no consolation ; you only tor- 
ture him the more. There is but one remedy : point such 
an one to the Cross ; open to him the doctrine of an expi- 
ation of man's guilt by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ the Son 
of God; show him, in Christ, his sins punished — nailed 
to the Cross, as they deserve to be. This will bring peace ; 
it will soothe and relieve man's sense of guilt; it will show 
him God's love, in expiating his guilt for him. Thus, 
showing man his guilt expiated, the barrier is removed, man 
becomes reconciled to God, is comfortable in His presence, 
and learns to love Him. 

It is the sight of Christ's sacrifice, whereby God is recon- 
ciling the world unto Himself, that reconciles man to God. 
And this is the only way of ever leading a creature con- 
scious of his guilt to love God. That class of Christians 
who exclude the atonement, if they sincerely love God, 
necessarily they must be unconscious of any guilt : but this 
is scarcely possible ; they cannot, therefore, truly love God ; 
it is under such circumstances a psychical impossibility. No 
doubt they believe they do, and they dwell constantly upon 
the love and mercy of God; but this very exclusiveness 
shows the weakness of the position. They dare not face 
the justice of God, entirely ignore it, because they cannot 
meet its demands, because there are some ugly questions 
connected with that justice; besides, this might awaken 
anxious inquiries within. The consciousness of guilt, evi- 
dently, is not entirely suppressed. This very over- anxiety 
to see only one side of the Divine character proves as 
much; the soul is not, then, reconciled to God. In the 
consciousness of Him it is uncomfortable, uneasy, afraid. 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 75 

Like the braggadocio, the man talks much and blatantly ; 
but within there is trembling, underneath there is weakness 
in the knees. The man who is reconciled to God through 
the sacrifice of Christ, eyes the justice of God with perfect 
composure. Justice is his friend. He looks at it, then, 
into himself; he sees his guilt, but he sees on Calvary a 
cross, sees upon it a sacrifice for sin, and there he sees his 
guilt expiated. Justice no more condemns him ; it is satis- 
fied. 

Christ being God-man, in Him God became conscious 
of guilt. As a man. He could feel what guilt deserved. 
Through sympathy and love, Christ could experience guilt, 
not as His own, but as his fellow-man's : as a Holy man. He 
could feel this acutely. There is no doubt we feel the guilt 
of those whom we love when they sin, if we be but par- 
tially holy and they not, more than they feel it themselves ; 
we feel for them, and verily wring our hands in anguish. 
Love and sympathy enable one man to bear the burdens of 
another; it joins together, and makes us feel each other's 
pains. God, in Christ, became conscious of human guilt. 
In Him, then, in His consciousness of guilt, the Divine 
sense of justice demanded, consciously, satisfaction. As 
human, in this consciousness of guilt, the human sense of 
justice also called for satisfaction. God and Man, both in 
Christ, in His consciousness of guilt, felt the need of satis- 
faction to justice. The Divine sense of justice, then, in 
Christ, made itself consciously felt, under the condition of 
guilt. God did really become consciously guilty, not of 
His own, but of His fellow-man's sin. God experienced 
the feeling of guilt ; His sense of justice, in Christ, con- 
sciously condemned, not Himself, but sin, as felt by Him, 
in His consciousness of guilt. To satisfy the demands of 
His Divine sense of justice. He underwent suffering and 
deajth, the penalty of sin. He did not, however, torture 



76 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

and kill Himself: God the Father inflicted the penalty. 
His sense of justice called upon Him to condemn and pun- 
ish the guilty one ; thus only would His sense of justice be 
satisfied. But how long ? for ever ? 

In Christ, the Divine sense of justice was satisfied by His 
own suffering and death. If in Christ, where the Divine 
sense of justice consciously existed under the conditions of 
guilt, if He felt guilt no longer, necessarily the sense of 
justice in God the Father must be satisfied, and He propi- 
tiated ; because He and the Father are one. In Christ, the 
human sense of justice has, too, been satisfied, for both 
human and Divine demand identically the same satisfaction. 
In Him, therefore, the two, the Divine and the human, met, 
and in His consciousness became one. Thus, in Christ, 
God actually became conscious of guilt, actually suffered 
for it, and consciously expiated it. Thus, in the very circle 
of the Godhead itself, has human guilt been experienced 
and expiated. Christ being God, His sense of justice was 
God's sense of justice. When, therefore, upon the cross, 
He uttered those memorable words, ''It is finished," then 
was God's sense of justice satisfied, and human guilt expi- 
ated. Moreover, being man. His sense of justice was 
man's sense of justice. When, therefore. He declared, ''It 
is finished," He announced the satisfaction of the human 
sense of justice. When, therefore, we contemplate the 
sacrifice of this our great fellow-man, seeing He combines 
in one God and man. His sufi"ering for us and in our stead 
satisfies the demands of our guilt, in its relation both to 
God and ourselves, allowing us to feel that it has been satis- 
factorily expiated. Thus, being justified by faith, con- 
sciously clear of guilt, we feel ' ' at peace with God, through 
our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access into 
this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the 
glory of God." 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 77 

The meaning of the incarnation is this : in Christ, the 
God-man, God himself enters into the consciousness of 
human guilt. As the holy God, He suffers what He feels 
to be the desert of guilt, and so, satisfactorily to Himself, 
expiates it. In Himself, God could never enter into the 
experience of guilt, but as man, in Christ, God has, in 
the person of his Son, experienced guilt. Here, then, we 
have the fulfilment of the prophecy contained in the rite 
of sacrifice, here the true meaning of its symbolism ; here 
is a victim, a substitute ; not a brute beast, but the Son of 
God incarnate. Entering into a full experience of man's 
guilt, and as divinely holy. He feels it most acutely. Con- 
sciously He experiences guilt, not His own, but by means 
of sympathy. His fellow-man's. Consciously, as God and 
man, He suffers what He feels that guilt deserves, satisfies 
His own divine and human sense of justice, and makes satis- 
faction for the guilt of the whole world. It is God who 
feels thus; therefore it is an eternal fact, an everlasting 
truth. Here, then, is the true, the final sacrifice, an atone- 
ment for the sins of the whole world, an historical fact, the 
sinner's hope. 



CHAPTER V. 



PRAYER. 

MAN, conscious of his immediate contact with an In- 
finite Being, prays. The elements entering into 
the unity of this Being are Omnipotence, Omnipresence, 
Omniscience, and Goodness. There is something in the soul 
the natural tendency of which is to vent itself in prayer. 
There is a force in the soul which impels man to uncover 
7^ 



78 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

his head, or to fall upon his knees, or to prostrate himself 
upon the ground, just according to his habit of reverence, 
and to cry aloud under the blue heavens to an unseen Being 
for help. The greater the exigency, the louder and more 
earnest the cry. No matter how entirely circumstances 
seem to shut the creature in, nay, the more inevitable the 
danger, the greater the felt necessity for prayer. Man's 
necessity is by the soul felt to be God's opportunity. If 
man could rescue himself, if the way of escape was open, 
then, most assuredly, there would be no prayer. But it is 
this very apparent impossibility of escape which brings man 
to his knees. The way of escape is, to human eyes, abso- 
lutely barricaded ; therefore it is that man is on his knees, 
crying for help. This proves that man is conscious of God 
as omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient; and though 
he may be in the dark as to His moral character, that still 
he puts some trust in His benevolence. He would not pray 
unless he had some hope of answer, and he could not hope 
unless he had faith in the benevolence of God. In prayer, 
then, there is, on the one hand, a consciousness of God, 
in his infinity and goodness, and, on the other hand, a con- 
sciousness of self, in all its weakness and dependence. Try- 
ing circumstances bring on the crisis ; and though man may, 
in prosperity, boast of his self-sufficiency, yet will adversity 
reverse the judgment, bring man to his knees, and make 
him, in his felt insufficiency, cry aloud for help. 

Prayer springs from the heart, and not from the head. 
The intellect and the heart are oftentimes found in antago- 
nism. In an age of ignorance as to the laws of nature, 
provided the consciousness of God be vivid, these two in- 
fluences do not interfere with each other. The gods of the 
superstitious heathen are to them capable of answering their 
prayers. In their ignorance, being unacquainted with the 
uniformity and invariableness of the laws of nature, they 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 79 

were not inconvenienced, were not hedged in by that in- 
tellectual difficulty which presents itself in a more enlight- 
ened age to more enlightened minds. In such an age, 
prayer could be more hearty ; and provided the suppliant 
could be assured of the benevolence of his God, neces- 
sarily he would be more hopeful, and could expect his 
prayer, however difficult the request, to be answered favor- 
ably. 

The difficulty which besets the subject of prayer now, is 
this. Seeing we have discovered how the great First Cause 
works, — seeing, we now know that He acts only in accord- 
ance with certain uniform, invariable rules which we have 
discovered, and which we term the laws of nature, — under 
such circumstances, it is folly to expect God to interfere, 
and arbitrarily to suspend or revoke these laws, and that 
simply upon the request of some poor individual man. 
There certainly are difficulties, but they can be easily re- 
solved, if we keep in mind the distinction between the head 
and the heart. Prayer is from the heart ; the difficulties 
are all intellectual — from the head; and, after all, it is 
only a question of pride. The intellect knows something, 
but imagines that it knows all. It cannot carry even what 
it has ; it staggers under it, and is confused. It would form 
a scheme of government, but cannot ; becomes confused, 
and then this reacts upon the forces of the heart. A man 
may become so confused as to be unable to pray ; such a 
thing is possible ; but although this may be the case while 
all is well, let but adversity come, let the soul be placed in 
trying circumstances, and the power of the heart will re- 
assert itself, the consciousness of God will revive, man will 
feel his own insufficiency, and the instinct of prayer, of 
man to call upon God for assistance, will make itself heard 
and felt. 

Placing ourselves at such a standpoint as will enable us 



80 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

to see the difficulties to be encountered, what do we see ? 
But before we proceed, let us understand the nature of the 
standpoint at which we are posted. In order, then, that 
difficulties should present themselves to the mind in the act 
of prayer, the intellect must be at least partially informed. 
Ignorance will offer no obstacles to the Omnipotent. The 
man who chains Him down must have some knowledge. 
The knowledge which gives rise to these difficulties is that 
of self and nature. The standpoint at which we are now 
posted is, then, one in which the intellect has been some- 
what informed ; where therefore a fund of knowledge, as 
regards both mind and matter, has been acquired, — where 
the intellect has been both educated and enlightened, — 
under such circumstances, the soul is more conscious of 
self and of nature than of God. Its attention being more 
constantly directed to these objects, the facts of self, and of 
nature are more constantly before it, and therefore, in any 
act, the soul is more apt to turn in one direction than an- 
other. For instance : a man is placed in trying circum- 
stances; he has been accustomed to reflect upon the laws 
of mind and matter, is unaccustomed to meditate upon the 
omnipotence of God. The soul, true to its instincts, is 
moved towards prayer ; but the mind, true to its education, 
turns in its accustomed direction, and stands staring at the 
laws of nature. The attention is directed from God and 
His omnipotence, and is fixed upon these laws and their 
invariableness. The soul urges to call for help ; the mind 
suggests difficulties. The man becomes confused, feels it 
is hopeless to pray, and turns away sullenly to meet his 
doom. 

Since the time when the inductive method was applied, 
the intellectual horizon of man as to the laws of matter has 
been greatly extended. Applying this method, either to 
nature or to the inner consciousness, we begin by observ- 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 8l 

ing facts ; next proceeding to apply the rules of exclusion 
and inclusion, we classify; then mounting up into the 
region of hypothesis, we generalize; then, thirdly and 
lastly, we verify. This being done, we have before us a 
law. What then is a law? It is but this : that, certain cir- 
cumstances being supposed to exist, certain other circum- 
stances may uniformly, invariably, nay, we may safely say 
inevitably be expected to follow. The antecedents being 
known, the consequents can invariably be predicated. 
What constitutes the connection between the two, we 
know not. That the one causes the other, may be true or 
it may not be. Nothing more do we know on the subject, 
but that the latter is an invariable consequent of the former, 
its antecedent. But this gives us much. We know what 
to expect : we know that the stone thrown up will come 
down ; that fire will burn ; that mind will think. Applying 
this method to both mind and matter, we discover the 
facts of both to be but chains of antecedents and conse- 
quents, of causes and effects, as it is generally said. Of 
course the greater our knowledge of these laws, the more 
thorough our knowledge of mind and nature. Now, to 
well-instructed minds these laws are but expressions for the 
method of the Deity. God, then, we learn by experience, 
and reason acts in mind and matter according to a certain 
uniform, invariable method. The laws of nature give us 
the rule of the Divine Omnipotence in its activity. Given 
then a law, and we know how God will under certain cir- 
cumstances act. 

Now prayer is in a certain sense unreasonable. It is 
logical, inasmuch as it springs out of consciousness of 
omnipotence ; but it is unreasonable, inasmuch as it goes to 
contravene the result of experience. The soul in its exi- 
gency recognizes the unlimited omnipotence, and trusts in 
the goodness of its God ; it overlooks the lesson of expe- 

F 



82 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

rience and the difficulties presented by the intellect, and 
in its logical unreasonableness calls aloud for aid. 

As long as the soul eyes the Divine nature, it hopes. 
To God all things are possible ; experience may offer diffi- 
culties, reason may confuse, but in times of exigency the 
soul turns its eye upon God : difficulties vanish, behold he 
prays. As soon as the exigency is past, the scene changes, 
the intellect returns again to its favorite topics ; the laws 
of nature loom up again ; the sense of God's omnipotence 
and goodness becomes less vivid j an endless chain of 
causes and effects attaches itself to the soul. The mind 
becomes confused ; it cannot see how prayer is to be an- 
swered, and so the voice of the soul becomes hushed, and 
the man settles himself down to the hopeless gloom of 
fatalism ; until the exigency arises again, and the logical 
unreasonableness of the soul makes itself felt once more. 

Prayer is logical, because it springs out of the recogni- 
tion of the omnipotence and the goodness of God. It 
appears to be unreasonable ; but it is only an appearance. 
Supposing ourselves fully assured of the existence of a law, 
so that we could declare a consequence to be inevitable, 
still, even under such circumstances, to expect and to pray 
for a different consequence is not unreasonable. From a 
human standpoint it is ; but not in reality. All things are 
possible with God ; because He is the Infinite One. The 
chasm between the finite and the Infinite is profound. The 
finite must not limit the Infinite. Though we have arrived 
at a point where we can predicate of a thing that it is im- 
possible, this we must remember is but the dictum of the 
finite. The Infinite is now to be brought into play, and 
who can predicate of Him, No, The soul appreciates this 
distinction. It feels, is conscious of the Infinite. It is 
broader than the intellect; goes deeper down, can feel 
what the intellect cannot conceive of. Man feels, and is 
conscious of the Infinite One ; but to conceive of Him, to 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 83 

form an adequate conception of Him, is impossible. Now- 
just as the soul is conscious of what the intellect is incapa- 
ble adequately of conceiving, so on the other hand, it prays 
for that which the intellect finds it impossible to explain, 
how it is to be supplied. The difficulties are all of the in- 
tellect, intellectual. The prayerful motions are all of the 
heart, uncalculating, instinctive. 

Supposing this universe to be finite, it is possible, man 
might comprehend it. He might contain in his mind the 
knowledge of the whole chain of antecedents and conse- 
quents, which holds good in the universe. Should such be 
actually the case, man could, humanly speaking, foretell 
exactly what under all circumstances would take place ; he 
would know all the laws of mind and matter ; and were the 
Deity but finite, could forecast his every procedure. But 
the Deity must be finite. Supposing the conception of the 
finite to be complete, yet how would this warrant any fore- 
cast as to the action of the Infinite ? It is this passage from 
the finite to the Infinite that the soul makes ; but which 
the intellect cannot ; at which it inevitably pauses. The 
soul makes the leap; prayer is a voice from the other side. 
Prayer is not then unreasonable. It is unreasonable for 
the finite to limit the Infinite. Prayer in the exigency of 
the finite demands of the Infinite. It is clearly, therefore, 
conformable with the purest reason. 

The conditions then necessary in order to this product 
of prayer, are, first, that there be, at least, some conscious- 
ness of God left in the soul, that this element of the con- 
sciousness be not entirely suppressed by an exclusive de- 
velopment of the intellectual; and next, that man be 
placed in trying circumstances — in an exigency in which 
it is manifest that all human aid is unavailing ; then inevi- 
tably the soul will turn to its God and cry to Him for help. 
Let such conditions but continue, and the soul will remain 



84 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

in the attitude of prayer ; when these are the permanent 
conditions, prayer will become a habit. The soul which 
constantly feels itself to be in an exigency prays always. 
It is a consciousness of his own need and helplessness, and 
of God's fullness, sufficiency, and goodness, that brings 
man to his knees. The reason why man prays so little is 
because in the main he is so self-sufficient. Under ordi- 
nary circumstances he feels that in himself he is self-suffi- 
cient. It is only when shut in by difficulties seemingly 
insurmountable that he is brought to see and to confess his 
mistake, and to betake himself to the Deity for help. Let 
a man be brought to feel that he is weak and insufficient 
of himself, and, provided he has not lost his consciousness 
of his God, he will be a praying man. The subordinate 
reason why men pray so little, is, because, while on the one 
hand they exercise and enlighten the intellect, on the 
other they fail to exercise the heart. They seldom medi- 
tate upon God ; their minds are dark on this subject ; they 
have formed to themselves no conception of the Deity, or, 
what is worse, an inadequate or false one. Their minds are 
more occupied with second causes than with the Great 
First ; the infinite complexity of second causes only con- 
fuses, and so the head becomes dizzy, and the voice of the 
soul goes out in a sigh and nothing more. 

The intellectual difficulty in prayer assumes two forms : 
first, how God is to answer prayer ; secondly, will He answer 
it. The first form aims at God's omnipotence, the second 
at His goodness or benevolence. In the first, the finite 
would comprehend and limit the Infinite, and is unreason- 
able ; a morbid state of mind arising out of a one-sided 
development. The second form of the difficulty is, how- 
ever, reasonable. The natural attributes of the Deity, His 
omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, and eternity, are 
necessary facts of the consciousness, contained in the unity 
of the being or substance of God, and can be evolved out 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 8$ 

of it ; all of these are essential elements of the grand sub- 
stance of the Infinite. But the benevolence of the Deity 
is in the same consciousness a more variable element. It 
is a fluctuating element ; there is more of the nature of an 
opinion about it, than of a conscious fact. And yet, in the 
one form or the other, this fact must enter into the unity 
of the religious consciousness, otherwise there would be no 
prayer. Man must in some way or other be persuaded of 
the benevolence of the Deity, otherwise he would not pray. 
Such persuasion may arise from evidence, or it may be an 
ingrained fact of consciousness, still, since we see its effects, 
we must infer it as a cause. Should man be persuaded of 
the absolute benevolence of the Deity irrespective of his 
own subjective condition, there would be no hesitancy in 
his approaches to Him. He would on all occasions in 
which he required help boldly call for it, and would con- 
fidently await an answer. But if his sense of the Divine 
benevolence be confused, if he be uncertain on this point, 
of course there will be hesitancy and want of confidence 
in addressing the Deity. Let man but be assured of this, 
and he will become as a child, and whenever he becomes 
involved in difficulties will betake himself for help to his 
Father in Heaven. Let but the obstacle of self-sufficiency 
be broken down by adversity ; let but the consciousness 
of God in His omnipotence and benevolence become a 
standing fact in man's inner experience, then will man be- 
come a hopeful, confident child, dependent and waiting 
on, and praying to the Great Father of the universe. But 
the difficulties in the way of this free access are grave. 
There is first a fluctuating state of uncertainty as to the 
Divine benevolence, and then, in addition to this, there are 
doubts arising from movements within. The great obstacle 
to familiar converse with God is fear of Him. This is 
a fact in the Religious consciousness. To be afraid is to 
S 



S6 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

avoid, to distrust, to cease to pray. This fear has roots, 
one of which, running down deep into man's soul, sends out 
its rootlets among all those disturbing facts which are con- 
nected with moral guilt. It is the feeling of guilt which 
makes man afraid to meet his God ; this it is which makes 
him shun God's presence, and makes him too uneasy to 
hold any familiar converse with Him. In times of agony 
the cry may be forced out ; but at other times, man, feel- 
ing his guiltiness, is sullen and stands off at an impracti- 
cable distance from his Maker. Now it is inevitable, that, so 
long as this state of things continues, man will remain a 
prayerless creature. Supposing even that he is persuaded 
of the infinite benevolence of the Creator, supposing this 
to have become a fact in his religious consciousness, still 
the soul will, even under such conditions, feel an estrange- 
ment ; still it will feel that something is wrong, that there 
is still a barrier between it and its God ; still it will feel 
timid in His presence, will feel a hesitancy in approach- 
ing Him, and will consequently be found seldom in prayer. 
The all-benevolence of the Deity is not enough, still there 
is something in the soul that will erect a barrier, will create 
a coldness between the two, will interrupt prayer. And 
this barrier lies in man's moral consciousness. It arises 
out of a sense of guilt. The hesitancy then in guilty man's 
approach is reasonable, and there is but one possible way 
of removing it : man must be persuaded finally, not only 
of the general goodness and benevolence of God, but also 
of His goodwill towards himself, guilty as he feels himself 
to be. In order to feel comfortable in the presence of his 
God, he must then feel that he has rendered satisfaction 
for his guilt. If this demand of his moral nature be not 
met, it will be impossible for him to feel comfortable be- 
fore God. When this is effected, man and God will be 
reconciled, will be at peace with each other ; being recon- 
ciled by faith, there will be peace, and access, and joy in 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 87 

the conscious sense of a re-established union. Thus will 
man be again established in his proper relation to his 
Maker, and thenceforth he will be a praying creature, 
making known his every want to an indulgent Father. 

Prayer then, in all its forms, from the very first move- 
ment of the soul in casting about for help, to its last full 
trustful confident demand upon its Heavenly Father for 
all that it feels in need of, is, psychically speaking, a logi- 
cal action. There is a logic of the soul as complete as that 
of the intellect. In the intellectual sphere, logic means 
this. Given certain propositions, termed premises, and the 
intellect will be forced to accept another proposition termed 
the conclusion. Now in the soul where the vital, active, 
powers reside, there is a state of things exactly correspond- 
ing to this. Given a certain psychical state or condition, 
and the man will act in a certain manner. In the one case 
the conclusion gives us intellectual sequence, that is to say, 
given the premises, and we can predict how the .man will 
think or conclude ; in the other, given the premises, which 
are psychical conditions, and we will know how the man 
will act. Provided the intellectual premises be clear, the 
conclusion is inevitable. 

Given then a psychical consciousness of God in His 
omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, and eternity and 
goodness, on the one hand, and on the other a conscious 
sense of weakness, and yet a felt necessity for help ; given 
a consciousness that mortal aid -is unavailing; given these 
psychical premises, and the conclusion is inevitable, — man 
will pray. The more vivid the elements entering into this 
condition, the greater the certainty. And if man be per- 
suaded, not only of the general goodness, but of the good- 
will of the Deity towards himself, not only will he pray in 
an exigency, but will always pray, will pray without ceas- 
ing, communing lovingly and confidently with his Father 
in Heaven. Without premises there is no conclusion ; 



88 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

without its own proper, peculiar psychical conditions, prayer 
is impossible. It is a logical sequence, and must have its 
premises. The reason why it is so little understood is, 
because its psychical premises are so generally absent. To 
be understood, these must be examined. If they are absent 
from the consciousness, this becomes an impossibility. Let 
these conditions be present, and then prayer, the conclusion, 
will follow. The man who says that intellectual difficul- 
ties so perplex him that he is unable to pray, is in exactly 
the condition of him who is so confused by physiological 
difficulties as to be unable to eat, or of him who is so 
perplexed with psychological difficulties as to be unable to 
reason. If he were hungry he would eat ; if the premises 
are present and understood, he will conclude ; if the psy- 
chical state is present, he will pray. As long as the ante- 
cedent conditions are absent, the proper consequents will 
not follow. 

Reasoning is a process, an intellectual one ; prayer too 
is a process, a psychical one. To be understood it must 
be analyzed, and to be analyzed it must first be experienced. 
And no one can understand this analysis, unless he has 
experienced the process himself. We observe then that 
prayer is a fact of the religious consciousness, is a result ; 
analyzed, it is a process in which the antecedents being 
present, the consequent inevitably follows. The intellec- 
tual difficulty as to how God is to answer prayer is not one 
of these antecedents. Prayer exists, though we may be 
ignorant of its laws. Supposing the scheme of this uni- 
verse and of this world to be such that the finite mind 
could grasp it ; supposing it was grasped and compre- 
hended in all its details, so that man could forecast all the 
operations of the Deity, and be thus acquainted with all His 
laws ; then would man understand how prayer could be an- 
swered. Until then it must remain a problem; and though 
it must ever remain so, still man will continue to pray. 



PART II. 



A SYNTHESIS. 



8* 



89 



CHAPTER I. 

THE MORAL LIFE. 

THE most general formula for the condition of human 
nature as we find it, is, Egotism. There is no- 
thing that has a stronger hold on human nature than its 
desire for independence. Nothing galls a man more than 
the necessity of submitting himself to the will of another. 
From the very earliest years this tendency makes itself man- 
ifest, and the very first lesson to be taught the infant is sub- 
mission. By the laws of our being the will of the parent is 
the rule of the child's obedience ; but even here there is 
resistance, and force and the law of fear must frequently be 
brought into requisition. But when manhood is reached, 
then this ceases, and thenceforth the man's own will de- 
termines his conduct. Human nature as a general rule is 
certainly conscious of God. It must then be cognizant of 
its relations to Him ; and man, if properly constituted, could 
not but feel an obligation to submit to and obey his Creator. 
The will of the Creator ought certainly to be the rule of the 
creature's conduct. He, as the great Father of the human 
race, ought certainly to be reverenced. His will ought to 
be obeyed, and His honor or glory ought to be the chief 
end which the creature should consider ; but this is not the 
case. God, though known, is not respected, and the crea- 
ture in mapping out his life does not take the glory of the 
Creator into consideration. There is nothing that man 
seeks more strenuously to assert than his independence. 
To be under the dominion of another, even though it be 
his Creator, is galling to him. The consciousness of such 
a relation, reinforced in Christendom, by early instruction, 

91 



92 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

seems only to irritate man, and at once there begins the 
struggle to stifle all such feelings of restraint. All of us 
are conscious of a desire to do as we please, and when, in 
such a course, we are met by a Divine command, we be- 
come irritated and fiercely champ the bit that would re- 
strain us. Man glories in this feeling of independence, 
. and when once the compunctions of conscience have been 
stifled, then human nature feels itself free and swells with 
exultation. At no time is this feeling stronger than when 
one is actually engaged in consciously breaking one of the 
Divine commands. Why do men so delight in breaking 
the Sabbath? because of the fourth commandment. The 
man who has not grown old in sin exults in such trans- 
gressions. They bring before his consciousness his inde- 
pendence — serve to remind him that he is his own master ; 
and though at first there may be under such circumstances 
a little fear mixed with the exultation, yet now, through im- 
punity, that is gone, and man in the consciousness of his 
wilful breaking of a Divine commandment, glories. His 
Egotism is indulged ; he is happy. There can be but two 
wills in the Universe, that of the Creator and that of the 
creature. Order would require that the one, that of the 
creature, should submit itself to the Creator's; but here 
the case is diflerent. The creature will assert its indepen- 
dence. It pleases itself; wilfully transgresses the will of 
the Creator, and exults in the consciousness of its trans- 
gression. It is this state of things that brings about in 
human nature what may be termed a chronic state of guilt. 
Man is conscious that he pays no respect to the will of the 
Creator, that he will do just as he pleases ; he knows that 
he intends to continue to assert his independence, and this 
causes him to feel that God is his enemy, and makes him, 
when he considers, afraid of Him. The only way in which 
he retains tranquillity of mind under such circumstances, is 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 93 

by not thinking of God. Therefore he banishes the 
thought from his mind, absorbs himself in the pleasures or 
business of life, and does just as he pleases. If he did 
think of God, unless he repented and determined to obey 
Him, he could not help hating Him. This condition of 
affairs brings about an alienation ; the two parties become 
estranged from each other. Sullenly the man eyes the God 
whose power he dreads ; defiantly he spurns his commands. 
Self-willed, he follows his own inclination ; and conscious 
of his guilt, he hates the God whom he cannot but fear 
when he thinks of him. 

Irrespective of all varieties of characters, penetrating it 
to its very core, human nature is essentially self-willed. 
Egotism, the doing as one pleases; the feeling of being in- 
dependent, of being self-sufficient ; — such is the spirit with 
which human nature is saturated. Necessarily such a spirit 
brings man in antagonism with God. Two wills cannot 
exist together ; one must give way to the other. Man will 
not submit his, so he must resist his Maker ; and yet feeling 
unequal to such a contest, knowing that in the end he must 
get the worst of it ; this, when he reflects upon it, makes him 
hate his God, as a tyrant and despot. So long as this 
spirit of independence continues, until man is humbled, 
this state of things must continue. Pride must be humbled, 
resistance must cease ; man must give in and submit, other- 
wise he will more and more bitterly hate God to all 
eternity. 

The fundamental category, then, expressive of the con- 
dition of human nature, is. Egotism. Egotism means self- 
deification, that man is a God unto himself. This condition 
considered in its relation to God is alienation, which in its 
finality becomes enmity. This fundamental condition 
admits of variety ; alienated from God, self-willed and 
self-sufficient, human nature is subject to great diversity. 



94 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

Being cut off from God, dependent upon itself for life and 
strength, necessarily it is upon a downward course. It 
cannot rise above itself; it draws no supplies from the In- 
finite and Perfect; the only life that it has is its own. 
Standing in a state of isolation, the finite cannot but ex- 
haust itself, and fall back into nothing, which in the case 
of the moral, is disorder and spiritual death. Egotism in all 
its forms contains the same thing, namely, a self-sufficiency. 
Feeling this, the creature becomes puffed up, and so we 
have pride; and being proud, it becomes self-willed, restive 
under all restraint, hating every controlling influence. 
Admitting the parallel fact of the consciousness, we have 
in the first place, the religious element of alienation from 
God, which is the natural product of the independent, self- 
willed spirit ; and then, as a last result, we have the hatred 
of God : a conscious resistance to His will, and an exulta- 
tion in the impunity with which the rebellion is carried on. 
Egotism, without a consciousness of God, that is apart 
from any religious element, provided the moral life be pres- 
ent, assumes the form of self-complacency. Atheism, the 
speculative state admitting of an unconsciousness of God, 
produces naturally the same result. Under such conditions 
Egotism will flourish, and the character will present as its 
most prominent features, pride, self-sufficiency, and self- 
complacency. 

Egotism as a spiritual state, admits of two divisions. In 
it, as isolated from God, there is a life, and this life 
may manifest itself in two ways. Provided it be efficient, 
it will bring about a course of moral conduct, will pro- 
duce an actual, moral life ; or, on the other hand, if it be 
not efficient, it will be overridden by the passionate prin- 
ciples of human nature. Coming into collision with lower 
forms of life, in the end it becomes entirely suppressed 
and extinguished. So long however as the moral life con- 
tinues to exist, it must manifest itself; unimpeded, it de- 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 95 

velops and becomes manifest in actual, moral life; resisted, 
it reacts upon itself, producing in the first place self-dissatis- 
faction, and in its finality remorse. 

Life in human nature presents itself to us under various 
forms. First, there is the animal life, then the intellectual, 
then the moral, then the religious life, and finally the 
Divine life. All of these forms can frequently be found ex- 
isting in individual personalities ; often, too, they are found 
separated, some of them manifesting themselves, others 
evidently wanting. The animal, intellectual, moral, and 
religious, are generally found associated. The Divine life 
is not a form of the natural life ; it is supernatural, im- 
ported into human nature, received by means of faith. 
The animal, intellectual, moral, and religious, are all 
natural. Human nature, in its natural state of Egotism 
and alienation from God, manifests all these forms of life. 
In proportion, and intensity, and number, they are found 
varying in different individuals ; but human nature in its 
originality is capable of exhibiting all these forms. Some- 
times the animal, intellectual, and moral are found asso- 
ciated together ; here we have human nature, but in a state 
of irreligion, it may be of Atheism. Under such condi- 
tions, if the animal life preponderates, and so assert itself 
as to repress the other two, here we will have before us the 
case of the sensualist. The animal life manifests itself in 
the passionate impulses of human nature ; and when the 
objects to which they relate are those of the senses — here 
man is on a par with the brute creation. He has appetites 
bodily like the brute, and the undue gratification of such 
impulses leads to sensuality. When the animal life pre- 
ponderates, it represses the higher forms of activity, and 
leads human nature back to the condition of the brute 
creation. The intellectual is a higher form of life ; it ex- 
ists first, as in the child, in the state of spontaneity; after- 



96 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

wards, as in the man, as a conscious life. Conscious, in- 
tellectual life begins with the power of voluntary reflection. 
Let this form of activity preponderate, and it will repress 
the animal life and will produce the Philosopher, a man 
above the influence of his bodily passions ; but if there be 
nothing more, perhaps a bad man. Now let there be 
added to this form of life the moral, let the animal life be 
held by the intellectual and the moral in proper subjection. 
Let the intellectual be guided by the moral, — supposing 
both the animal and the intellectual to exist, — yet add but 
the moral, and it will aim at holding the others under due 
restraint ; here then we will have the moral man, a man 
of like passions with ourselves, a man who thinks and rea- 
sons ; but moreover a man who has a conscience, a man 
who is conscious of a sense of right and wrong within him, 
of a feeling which, on the proposal of an action or course 
of conduct, can approve one course or condemn another. 
Let this form of life preponderate, and this result will 
manifest itself; the man will follow the dictates of his 
conscience, he will regulate his conduct in accordance with 
the moral judgments he forms ; and here we have before us 
human nature ; animal, intellectual, with all its original 
elements, and yet, at the same time, moral. Up to this 
point not even a thought of God may have suggested itself 
to the mind. The moral man may easily be an irreligious 
man, perhaps an Atheist. The religious life is still a 
higher, and another distinct form of human life. The 
moral life, in its normal development, manifests itself in a 
moral course of conduct. The main points in the case are 
these : the soul in its cognizance of human conduct passes 
certain judgments, it pronounces certain actions and courses 
of conduct, right, others wrong ; in the personal conscious- 
ness it obligates a man to do this, it forbids him doing 
that ; it approves or condemns the conduct of others, and 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 9/ 

passes the same judgment upon itself. There is, then, in 
the human consciousness, a living rule of conduct, seeking 
expression. When the moral life is present, that rule will 
be obeyed. It will become a recognized guide, it will 
find expression in an actual moral life. Here we have the 
moral life acting under its normal conditions. But if the 
moral judgments be disregarded, and the conduct be in 
contravention to them, here the moral life, if it exist, will 
manifest itself in another form. In seeking to assert itself, 
it has been met and repressed, still it is not extinguished. 
Life is activity, essentially so, and until it ceases to exist, 
it will assert itself, will attempt a manifestation. Though 
repressed then, it still exists, and expresses itself under the 
category of remorse. Moral death is stagnation, there is 
nothing of regret or remorse in it. The moral judgments 
are disregarded without any compunction; one of the 
elements of human nature is for the time absent. The 
moral life will make itself felt ; if successful, it becomes a 
fact ; if unsuccessful, it reacts, creating great spiritual dis- 
comfort. In the first case we have self-complacency, in 
the second, self-dissatisfaction, because the first is a normal 
condition, the second is unnatural and abnormal. Life is, 
essentially, activity and development ; unimpeded, it passes 
on to growth and development and final realization of its 
tendency. Impeded, growth and development cease, and 
an abnormal and painful activity takes the place of the 
original healthy activity ; moral life impeded, gives us an 
unnatural development, tending downwards to the morbid 
condition of an eternal remorse. 

The moral life is an activity, a tendency to bring up the 
conduct to conformity with the dictates of the moral judg- 
ment. Such conformity being attained, the moral life be- 
comes realized, a tendency obtains its realization, and 
becomes a moral fact. Such a realization is perfectly con- 
'9 G < 



98 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

sistent, philosophically speaking, with an entire absence of 
any element of the religious life. Morality is then con- 
sistent with irreligion, and even Atheism. It may, or it may 
not exist under the Egotistic consciousness. 

The decisions of the moral faculty are in the way of 
judgments. . A classification of such judgments, succeeded 
by a generalization thereupon, would give us a code of 
moral laws. This code is known as the moral law, and as 
such becomes a standard of morality. It is evident that 
such a standard is subject to considerable variation. First, 
then, there is the standard of morality, arising out of the 
judgments of the moral faculty when left to itself. Unen- 
lightened from any other source, the moral faculty, still 
using the light which in itself it possesses, will finally arrive 
at some standard of morals ; inevitably, certain actions 
will be pronounced wrong, and others pronounced right. 
Out of such a series of judgments will arise a generalization, 
and form such a moral code. There may be great imper- 
fection, the code may be very limited, some of the judg- 
ments may even be reversed, and wrong; the moral faculty 
may be so torpid as scarcely to work ; seldom judging, 
sometimes judging through darkness, wrongly, still, with 
all this, under all circumstances, human nature, provided 
it be not deprived of one of its fundamental elements, will 
be found uttering moral judgments j having a moral law, 
having, therefore, some standard of morality. Such are 
the standards of morality prevalent among all those por- 
tions of the human race which are without any express 
revelation from on high. 

In its primary exercise the moral faculty performs 
two distinct functions. The conditions which call for 
its exercise are simply the cognizance of a moral action, 
it matters not whether the action be past or future, 
whether performed or to be performed by one's self, . 
or by another. In the presence of an action involving 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 99 

right or wrong, the moral faculty at once comes into 
action. The functions which it exercises are two. It 
views the case in all its moral bearings, examines into 
motives and circumstances, everything relating to the 
moral conditions of the act; and having done thisj it imme- 
diately passes judgment, pronounces the contemplated 
action right or wrong. If the action past is wrong, it con- 
demns it; if future, it disapproves and forbids it. That 
which is right carries with it a conscious obligation of per- 
formance ; that which is wrong, consciously, ought not to be 
done. When the action judged is one's own, there follows 
self-approval or self-condemnation, and this is on the one 
hand a pleasure, on the other a pain. The attachments of 
the moral judgments to the personality, forms a third sub- 
ordinate function, pertaining to the moral faculty. The 
first is its inquisitorial, the second its judicial, the third is 
its guilt-attaching power. The moral faculty attaches guilt 
to the sinning soul, it becomes immediately consciously 
guilty, self-condemnation is a necessity. The soul feels 
that it is in possession of all the facts of the case, is con- 
scious that its inquisitorial office has been thoroughly exe- 
cuted, knows, therefore, that it is in possession of the 
truth. It knows exactly the circumstances and motives 
under which the act was committed, and as such it feels 
competent to judge. Its judgment is just ; the soul is con- 
scious of the finality of its decision. It condemns or 
approves not the action, but self; here, then, we have the 
vital moral fact of guilt. It is the soul condemning itself: 
the soul conscious of its guilt, the soul knowing that its 
condemnation is just. The same process is apt to occur in 
the contem.plation of the actions of others ; but here the 
case is different. The soul cannot know that it is in pos- 
session of all the facts of the case ; it may perhaps condemn 
unjustly, it may attribute false motives, it may not know 



lOO WHAT IS RELIGION? 

all the limiting circumstances in the case, as ignorance, &c. , 
therefore there may be some mistake, and the judgment 
passed upon another may be unjust. Under such circum- 
stances, to be certainly just, the action only can be passed 
upon. It may be such that the moral faculty cannot but 
pronounce it wrong. In pronouncing upon the actor, it 
may misjudge him. Still such is generally the case : the 
mind passes from the action to the actor, connects the act 
with him, and passes judgment upon him. Only the 
omniscient One can judge another with unerring justice. 
The feeling which follows the sentence passed upon an- 
other depends upon the nature of the act. If the action 
be good, the actor will be approved, and perhaps admired 
and liked ; if bad, he will be disapproved of and disliked 
and avoided. It is impossible for a man to like one whom 
his moral judgment pronounces upon unfavorably ; physi- 
cal ugliness is revolting, and the same is true of moral. 
The point at which caution is to be used, is, in the judg- 
ments we pronounce ; we must be cautious here because it 
is impossible for us to know all the facts of the case. Self- 
condemnation, if the offence be gross, begets self-loathing. 
Condemnation of another under similar circumstances 
begets the same thing. In the case of ourselves, the in- 
quisitorial function is thoroughly executed ; in the case of 
others it cannot be. The judicial is in both cases the same : 
what we condemn in ourselves, we must condemn in 
others, and vice versa, if we be candid, and pass judg- 
ment on ourselves. In the one case we necessarily pass 
on to attach the sentence upon ourselves ; in the other, 
though ordinarily it is impracticable to delay this process, 
still reason tells us it is safer, if we would be just, to stop 
at the action and condemn that only. 

The two functions, then, excluding this last subordinate 
one, which the moral faculty exercises in its primary pro- 



WHAT IS RELIGION? lOI 

ceedlngs, are its inquisitorial and its judicial. The inqui- 
sitorial requires nothing but candidness, that the man come 
to the examination of his conduct, either past, present, or 
future, with a candid mind and a desire to know the truth. 
He must then enter into a full and minute examination of 
all the details of the case ; he must act for himself the part 
of counsel in the conduct of a case ; he must thus fairly 
bring out the points at issue ; and having done this, the 
inquisitorial function ceases, the judicial must now begin. 
To pass a just judgment, the Judge must not only know the 
point at issue, something more is required ; — provided 
there be no formal law on the subject, nothing to which 
the Judge is to refer the case as coming under it, under such 
circumstances, nothing remains but that the Judge be an 
intelligent, just man ; — he must be able to understand the 
case, and then his sense of justice must make him to act 
justly in the premises. Where there is a law, the Judge is 
but an interpreter : first, he classifies the case, brings it under 
the law applying to it, and having done this, becomes 
simply the mouth-piece of the law ; he declares in general 
what the law enacts ; this case he pronounces to fall under 
this specific act or clause of it, and, therefore, thus saith 
the law in this case. Whenever the judgment is left to the 
Judge's discretion, as, for instance, the amount of the pen- 
alty, here the Judge not only is the Judge, but also the legis- 
lator and law in himself. And here the necessity of his 
personal justice again comes in. The moral faculty may 
have occasion to exercise itself, without any formal law. 
It may have no defined law at all, or again, may have 
none applying to the case ; in such case it becomes a law 
unto itself, and is dependent upon its own enlightenment. 
This may be, as often happens, darkness. Hence, the moral 
faculty as a judge is in need of enlightenment. Either 
give it another law to go by, or make it a law unto itself. 



102 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

The moral faculty is peculiarly a personal one, the moral 
judgments of one man are not those of another. The 
same process has to be repeated in each individual case, in 
each individual bosom. On the other hand, man does not 
exist in isolation ; as a man he is a member of society, and 
as such is affected by the past and by the present. The 
moral faculty has ever been in exercise ; moral judgments 
have, therefore, ever existed. These judgments have been 
classified, and generalized upon, and hence there has always 
existed in every community a moral law, and a standard 
of morality. Just as in the civil sphere from individual 
judgments and customs there gradually arose that civil 
code denominated the English common law. So in morals, 
human moral judgments gradually became customs, and 
finally assumed the form of a traditional body of moral 
laws. No man, during any age, can, in forming his moral 
judgments, remain uninfluenced by such a standard. Un- 
consciously to himself he is under a law. The moral 
faculty stands in the same relation to this law, as the civil 
judge does to the civil law of the land. Thus the tradi- 
tional moral law becomes a body of instructions for the 
moral faculty. A case arises ; as soon as it is understood, 
it is referred to the law applying to this class of cases. 
The law pronounces its sentence, and the moral faculty in- 
structed by the law does but in fact become its mouth- 
piece. Instructed by the law, the moral faculty becomes 
a living law, and pronounces living decrees. The law, 
whether written or traditional, speaks only by letter. The 
moral faculty incorporates the law in itself. The law be- 
comes a living spirit, and as such pronounces living 
spiritual judgments. Although then, theoretically, it is 
possible for the moral faculty of itself, in a state of isola- 
tion, to pronounce moral judgments, yet practically such a 
condition never exists. Man is a member of society, de- 



WHAT IS RELIGION? IO3 

pendent upon the past, influenced by the present. Prac- 
tically then, in the form of customs or traditions, a moral 
code must always exist. The moral faculty is influenced 
by such a code, it is instructed thereby and forms its judg- 
ments under its influence. 

The standard of morality which exists in any commu- 
nity forms the rule of public opinion. Where the moral 
faculty receives instructions from no other source than 
tradition, whatever is the public opinion of the age, 
will be its morality. What public opinion indorses, that 
the private conscience will approve ; what it brands, that 
the private conscience will condemn. Public opinion is 
as it were the conscience of society at large ; each mem- 
ber of the community, in his private conscience, is but an 
exponent of the same ; thus the private being an exponent 
of the public, the two are necessarily in unison. What then 
public opinion condemns, must meet with the same judg- 
,ment in the private forum of conscience. Thus it happens 
that public opinion has the power of the keys : what it 
binds is bound in the conscience ; and what it looses is 
loosed. If there be no other source of instruction, it is 
evident that morality must be on a level with public 
opinion. The standard of morality and of public opinion 
will then, under these circumstances, be the same. 

The moral faculty, as we have seen, though influenced by 
the traditional moral law, is not absolutely dependent upon 
it. It may put it aside and judge for itself without any refer- 
ence to written or customary law. It may depend entirely 
upon its own instinct, seeking to separate itself altogether 
from opinions of the day ; it may isolate itself, call up its own 
inspiration, and pronounce judgment of itself. Acting 
under such conditions, it may happen that the individual 
may rise above the morality of public opinion, may con- 
demn that which public opinion approves, and approve 
that which it condemns. Such cases no doubt do actually 



104 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

occur, and we cannot, as religious beings, doubt it, when 
the effort for truth is made in the spirit of faith and prayer. 
There have been instances of men who have encountered 
the force of public opinion, preachers of righteousness who 
have condemned and branded practices which the public 
opinion of the day indorsed ; — men, therefore, who were 
persecuted for righteousness' sake, and who, therefore, 
have their reward. The man who, disgusted with the public 
virtue of the day, falls back upon himself, and, under a 
Divine inspiration, arrives at a clearer knowledge of the 
truth, — the man who, under such convictions, assails the 
received doctrines, — such a man is the Reformer ; and such 
men have lived. These are, however, the exceptions ; as a 
general rule, the conscience of the individual is in harmony 
with the public standard of morality. Such a standard 
finds its expression in the voice of public opinion. What 
public opinion indorses, that the individual conscience ap- 
proves ; and what it condemns, that the private conscience 
disapproves and forbids. If then the individual, under 
such circumstances, lives up to this public standard, his con- 
science will acquit him of all moral delinquency, he will 
experience the satisfaction of an approving conscience, and 
society must regard him as a moral and righteous member 
of it. Thus to himself and to others he appears as a 
righteous and perhaps a good man. He has within him a 
conscience void of oifence, both toward God and man. 

The tendency of the moral life is, as we have seen, to 
bring about a conformity between the judgments of the 
moral faculty, the moral law, and the conduct. Let, then, 
this form of life exist, and in such force as to restrain the 
lower forms and to realize itself; under such conditions, 
with a standard of morality established by man, without 
Divine illumination, it is possible that the conduct may 
conform to it, and thus we would have before us realized 



. WHAT IS RELIGION? IO5 

as a fact in human nature, the moral life. Here we have 
before us the moral life and the moral man, the latter the 
manifestation of the former. Observe carefully the case 
under consideration. It is the condition of all those por- 
tions of the human race which are without the illumination 
of a Divine revelation. There is a standard of morality, 
but it is essentially human, the result of a human moral 
science; the natural moral judgments classified, and gen- 
eralized upon; a moral law floating about in the moral 
consciousness of the age, finding its formal enactment in the 
public opinion of the age. Such a standard must, from the 
nature of the case, vary. Its natural tendency is downward. 
As the ages roll on, it becomes more and more lax, the 
code becomes more limited, and the standard being the 
guide of the private conscience, necessarily human conduct 
becomes more depraved. It is possible that now and then, 
through the effort of some Reformer, this standard may re- 
ceive a lift. But the tendency in human nature is to lower 
the moral standard of duty. Thus it is theoretically pos- 
sible that the standard of morality should be so low, that 
the moral life would have no room for its exercise, and so 
could not exist. The lower the standard, the moral life 
existing, the greater its possibility of realization. It is easier 
to conform to a lax law than to a strict one ; hence, heathen 
morality was«far easier than Christian. The moral life ex- 
isting, it was easy, under heathenism, for the soul to arrive 
at the self-satisfied condition of a conscious state of morality. 
A man very naturally measures himself by his standards j 
these, being self-made, are not high ; they are such as the 
moral life can easily attain to, realize, and then enjoy it- 
self in the sensation of a soothing self-complacency. Under 
such circumstances not only is there self-commendation, 
but also the commendation of one's fellow-men; and this 
adds to the satisfaction of the moral life. A low standard 



I06 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

of morality is then compatible with a conformity to it. 
When the moral life exists as a power in the soul, and 
effectually develops itself, this conformity is actually 
attained, then follows self-complacency, self-sufficiency, 
pride, contempt of others, all the psychical elements con- 
tained in the state of Egotism. Such a conformity to law 
is perfectly consistent with irreligion. Atheism, or, in case 
of the presence of the consciousness of God, is consistent 
with the hatred of Him. 

When there is no moral life in the soul, still the 
moral faculty will continue to pronounce its judgments. 
Instructed by the prevalent standard of morality, it will 
judge, acquit, or condemn the soul ; but here the pro- 
cess will end ; there being no moral life, there will 
be no effort after conformity with the standard of moral- 
ity, there will be no movement of the soul to establish 
a harmony between the conduct and the moral judg- 
ment. It is a life which creates this movement, a life 
seeking its manifestation. The activity of this life will not 
cease until it meet with its realization in the actual personal 
moral life. The reason why the standard of morality is 
always gradually lowered, is, on the one hand, in order 
that the lower forms of life, all restraint being removed, 
may have unlimited development, and on the other hand, 
in order that the moral life may find its realization more 
practicable. The higher the standard, the greater the 
throes of the moral life in its process of realization ; the 
repression of life is painful, the repression of the moral life 
produces painful symptoms, much mental distress ; to 
avoid this, the moral standard is lowered. 

The next standard of morality to be considered is that 
of revelation. Observe then, in the first place, the ways 
in which such a standard can be presented. First, there is 
the positive way by means of a prohibitive law, such as the 
ten commandments under the Mosaic dispensation. Such 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 10/ 

a plan admits, in the first place, the presence of sin in 
human nature, and by a series of special commandments, 
it aims at repressing the expressions of that principle. The 
self-willed, self-seeking, egotistic principle is admitted as 
existing in man ; the commandments would check its mani- 
festing itself in actions. The moral law, as a command- 
ment, does not pretend to uproot the sinful principle ; it 
simply forbids its actions. The sinful principle is one will, 
the commandment is the expression of another ; the latter 
forbids the activity of the former ; it is an outward force 
meeting an inward force aiming at repressing it. The 
command meets man from without ; the inner force of sin 
impels him to evil deeds ; he is met by the moral barrier 
of the Divine will, as expressed in the commandments. A 
will is set over against a will, the Divine against the human. 
The standard then, set up by a system of prohibitive posi- 
tive commandments, is a negative one. It admits the ex- 
istence of a wilful principle within; but forbids it ever 
coming into action. It forbids it even to go so far as to 
covet, that is, to entertain an inordinate desire. The 
moral faculty within the soul cannot but recognize the ex- 
cellence of such a standard. By its very nature it is sus- 
ceptible to the beauty of moral excellence. When moral 
virtue is exhibited, whether by law or by example, the moral 
faculty cannot but recognize it as the true, the beautiful, 
and the good ; cannot but feel its power, and feel its force 
as an obligation, to do and be likewise. The intellect, 
unless overthrown, must and will recognize and perceive 
the truth when clearly presented to it ; the moral faculty, 
unless entirely subverted, cannot but perceive the beauty 
and feel the obligation of moral virtue when presented be- 
fore it. Whether such a model will prove effectual in 
moulding the character is another question, depending 
entirely upon the presence of another element, namely, 



I08 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

of the moral life in the soul. Whether the commandments 
of God, or rather, whether the standard presented by them 
shall become the rule of man's conduct, depends entirely 
upon the power of the moral life within him. It is quite 
possible, that while a man may approve and admire a 
standard, yet he may prove recreant to his moral convic- 
tions, and be immoral in his conduct. 

To prevent misunderstanding, observe that, in discussing 
the morality of the ten commandments, we are not view- 
ing them in their religious connection, that is, as coming 
from God. The religious obligation to morality has not 
yet come into view ; we are considering them merely in 
their moral relation, as embodying a code or standard of 
morality — such a morality as might be practised without 
any regard to God : whether such a thing is practicable is 
another question ; we have not yet arrived at that. It is 
possible, we say, to erect a standard of morality by means 
of prohibitive enactments ; we cite the ten commandments 
as an instance. True, the religious is here found in inti- 
mate conjunction with the moral ; but for the present we 
ignore this connection, we ignore the duties which arise 
out of nearer obligations to God, — these pertain not to 
morality, but to religion ; nor does the moral faculty take 
cognizance of them. A man may be moral without being 
religious; he may, having a low standard of morality, 
easily conform to it; he may practise such a morality for 
various reasons ; he may do so from selfish motives, or he 
may do so simply because he regards it as right, because 
he values the answer of a good conscience ; this gives us 
the truly moral man — the man in whom the moral life 
exists and is realized. The higher the standard, the more 
impracticable is this result ; when it reaches the prohibition 
even of desire, here its realization becomes, humanly 
speaking, impossible. Under such circumstances the moral 



WHAT IS RELIGION? lOQ 

life cannot be realized. Morality consists in conformity 
of life with a standard recognized or recognizable by the 
moral faculty as being right. ^' Thou shalt not bear false 
witness against thy neighbor ; thou shalt not steal ; thou 
shalt do no murder ; thou shalt not commit adultery ; thou 
shalt not covet j" these are all recognized by the moral 
faculty as being right. But, *' thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God with all thy heart ; thou shalt not make any graven 
image, nor bow down to them ; thou shalt keep holy the 
Sabbath day," these commandments the moral faculty does 
not respond to. To disobey them is to be irreligious, not 
immoral. The faculty which feels the obligation of such 
commandments is not the moral, but a religious one ; not 
the conscience, but another faculty of the. soul. Not to 
love God is not to be immoral : it is unnatural, and it is 
irreligious; immorality and irreligion are different forms 
of Sin. Morality practised in the fear of or fi%m love to 
God is godliness ; practised simply because it is right, it is 
morality, but at the same time the man is an ungodly man. 
The religious element must come in before morality can 
pass into piety and godliness. There* are other ways in 
which a moral standard may be presented, ways which 
have been actually adopted by revelation. The standard is 
begun, as we have seen, by prohibition ; the object of the 
commandment is to repress sin, to prevent its breaking out 
into word or action, and, further, even in thought. This 
is the negative side ; the positive side of the standard requires 
not any action, but an affirmation. It requires dispositions : 
instead of saying, "do not steal," it says, ''be honest;" 
in place of ''thou shalt do no murder," it says, " love your 
enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that 
hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and 
persecute you;" and so on. It forbids lust. Be chaste, 
be temperate, be ye kind, tender-hearted, forgiving one 

lO 



no WHAT IS RELIGION? 

another. In fine, it says, be perfect. It is a body of coun- 
sels of perfection requiring dispositions, all of which it 
sketches, sometimes in the abstract, at other times in the 
concrete, giving instances of the disposition required, by 
parable and by metaphor. Here, then, is the positive side 
of the standard. The command to love, implies of course 
the prohibition to hate, and so on with all the positive 
virtues. Here, then, we have both sides of the law ; on the 
one hand, all sinful thoughts, words, and actions are for- 
bidden ; on the other hand, all that is pure and good and 
perfect in human character is required. All evil disposi- 
tions being at the same, time both implicitly and explicitly 
condemned, here then we have before us a standard of 
moral perfection. And high as it is, the moral faculty is 
capable of responding to it and appreciating it. Brought 
into contact with it, the moral faculty cannot but pro- 
nounce it as embodying all that is true, beautiful, and 
good in moral character. 

The. last way in which revelation presents a moral stand- 
ard is in the way of a moral life. It brings before us in 
the four Gospels, the life of the man Christ Jesus. It 
gives us in actual life an instance of one who lived up to 
this standard. Placed under circumstances adapted to call 
out all that is true, beautiful, and good in the moral char- 
acter, the great moral teacher lived what he taught. He 
exhibited in his life the counsels of perfection. The cir- 
cumstances under which he was placed were so overruled 
as to bring out and exhibit the various beauties of charac- 
ter. Not only does his life conform to the law prohibit- 
ing sinful manifestations, but here we have all that is per- 
fect, all that is positive ; we have points of character, moral 
dispositions exhibited. In Him we have the actual reali- 
zation of the moral life, the standard being one of perfec- 
tion. ^ Of course there is more in that life than moral per- 



WHAT IS RELIGION? Ill 

fection. Human perfection has in it more than this ; and 
Jesus Christ was the perfect man, perfect in all the rela- 
tions which human nature occupies. Revelation gives us 
then in Jesus Christ a living instance of moral perfection, 
a model therefore, and a perfect standard of morality. In 
Him the moral life existed in its full power ; it wrought it- 
self out, and was realized. He required no standard. He 
was a Reformer, His own conscience was His guide ; he 
left the traditional standard. He assailed it, as the Sermon 
on the Mount witnesses. He fell back upon his own in- 
ward light, and in the spirit of prayer and faith lived by 
His own light. His moral judgments were never at fault ; 
His generalizations were laws, the real laws of morality, 
a new and yet the old moral code. All the reformers, 
preachers of righteousness, that went before, were but the 
shadows of Him who was to come, the man Christ Jesus. 

Thus we have, under these forms, a standard of morality 
presented to us in Revelation, — a standard which the 
moral faculty must and will, if fairly dealt with, recognize, 
appreciate, and pronounce as the true one. Now suppos- 
ing the moral life to exist in the soul, what will we find ? 
Evidently an effort after conformity. The moral life seeks 
to realize itself by bringing about a conformity of the con- 
duct with its moral standard. The man, then, in whom 
the moral life exists will be struggling after conformity 
with this standard. What will be the result ? A failure ; 
and why? Because of the existence of another form of 
life, — the life of sin within the soul. Man in striving 
after the sublime ideal presented in Revelation finds him- 
self at fault. The very effort develops that of which he 
had hitherto been unconscious. He finds himself under 
a bondage from which he cannot emancipate himself; 
the moral life quickened within strives to come to birth. 
It yearns to conform to that standard which it feels is the 



112 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

true one ; but it is met by another life, a life strictly in an- 
tagonism with its tendency, and this at once produces dis- 
cord. The sinful principle is a life whose development is 
directly in antagonism with the standard of morality. Ex- 
actly what that law forbids, that sin urges unto. It has two 
roots running down into both the animal and intellectual 
life. The effort at conformity develops, then, discord, and 
man soon finds that to realize the moral life by such a 
standard is an impossibility. What then follows? The 
egotism of the soul is seriously disturbed ; the soul is 
stripped at once of its self-complacency and self-sufficiency. 
The man finds that he cannot be moral, even though he 
desire to be so. This is humiliating and distressing, and, 
rather than submit to it and recognize his helplessness, he 
settles the question by lowering the standard. He brings 
it down to what he can perform, and so strikes a compro- 
mise. He satisfies the cravings of his moral life, inasmuch 
as he is able to conform to such a standard. Thus he re- 
tains his . self-complacency, and is still able to glory in his 
self-sufficiency. At the same time he allows the sinful 
principle to hold dominion and to gratify all its impulses, 
provided only they contravene not his moral standard. 

Such exactly is the treatment which the moral standard 
of Revelation has met with at the hands of men, and this, 
even while it continued to be acknowledged as Divine. 
Yet men, finding it impossible to realize the moral life 
under such a standard, instead of acknowledging this and 
being humbled by it, they proceeded gradually to lower 
and adapt it to their capacities. Thus, when the law said, 
**Thou shalt love thy neighbor," they added, '* and hate 
thine enemy." The Jew felt at liberty to hate all save the 
members of his' own community. 

The law of divorce underwent a similar degradation. 
Thus under a gradual downward pressure, the original 



WHAT IS RELIGION? II3 

Standard became lowered, and in the teaching of the scribes 
and Pharisees, in the time of Christ, it had become a mere 
cloak of hypocrisy, allowing all that was foul and malig- 
nant to vent itself. Christ the Reformer at once assails 
this, — he came not to destroy, but to fulfil, — and the 
first thing he did was to re-erect the ancient standard. All 
false glosses he tore up by the roots, and he erected the 
Divine standard in its unmistakable sublimity. Christ's 
standard is the standard of Christianity ; but how is it now ? 
The same process has been going on, as did go on under 
Judaism. The Christian Church, it might naturally be 
supposed, would be the exponent of this standard. And 
is this so ? However it may have been, it is evident that 
this is not now the case. This standard is not even pro- 
fessed, and, of course, still less can we expect to find it 
exhibited. The Sermon on the Mount is not now the 
morality of the Christian Church. The Scribes and Phari- 
sees of the Church have managed to lower it, to bring it 
down to the capacity of an evil human nature. Acknowl- 
edging the impracticability of conforming to it, as it stands, 
they lower it, and so render it practicable. As it stands, 
it must ever humble man, disturb his self-complacency, 
break up his self-sufficiency, thus inducing one of the prime 
conditions of Christian repentance. 

The realization of the moral life under such a standard 
must at once be acknowledged to be impossible ; yet the 
moral faculty cannot but recognize it as the true one ; 
hence arises great disturbance of soul, great dissatisfaction 
with one's self. To alleviate this and restore the psychical 
equilibrium, the standard is lowered; and by this means 
the moral life is realized, self-complacency restored, self- 
sufficiency reinstated in the soul, and man feels no need of 
a Saviour. Such is the course of proceeding even in the 
Christian Church, where the moral standard is recognized 
10* . H 



114 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

as coming immediately from God. Men tamper with it 
and modify it, even mider such circumstances, and they 
manage to shut their eyes to the truth. The conscience is 
led not by the Word, but by the glosses of the Scribes and 
Pharisees. These glosses have been generally received, 
until at last they have supplanted the original. There is, 
then, a received standard in the Church, but it is not that 
of revelation. It is a traditional moral standard, float- 
ing about in the general Christian consciousness. This 
standard is not uniform ; it varies with every community; 
varies even with different congregations of Christians. 
Having departed from the original, each party modifies its 
already diluted one to suit itself. The object in each is to 
allow of the realization of the moral life with as little in- 
convenience as possible, — to enjoy the self-satisfaction of 
being moral, while at the same time all the inclinations 
which the lofty standard would condemn, are amply grati- 
fied. 

Sundered from its conscious connection with revelation, 
we find this same adulterated Christian standard afloat. 
Through revelation it has become implanted in the human 
consciousness. The conscience of society, as we find it 
with us, is sensitive. Its judgments, as compared with 
those of other portions of the race where this education has 
not been received, are righteous. The traditional moral 
standard which we find among us, and by which our moral 
faculty is educated, is much higher than that which existed 
in heathendom. Outside of the Church there is a moral 
standard ; it issues primarily from r-evelation, passes then 
through the consciousness of the Church, where it becomes 
partially adulterated ; from thence it passes into the con- 
sciousness of society at large, where it becomes still more 
so. It has now entirely lost its association with its Giver. 
Society finds itself under a law ; it adopts it without caring 



WHAT IS RELIGION? II5 

from whence it came. The individual grows up under it ; 
his moral faculty is guided and educated by it. His con- 
science is then, after all, a diluted form of the Christian 
conscience ; his standard an adulterated form of the Chris- 
tian standard. The society may be Christian in its morals, 
and yet at the same time unchristian, even atheistic in its 
belief. The standard of morality under which a man lives 
is not without but within him. The moral faculty appro- 
priates and makes it a man's own. He feels this to be 
right, and that to be wrong. His conscience has been 
educated up to it. Just as the intellect appropriates knowl- 
edge that it understands, so that it becomes its own, so 
the moral faculty appropriates the moral law, and thence- 
forth it becomes an inner law. The moral faculty becomes 
a law unto itself. 

In the Christian consciousness the moral law is recog- 
nized not only as the rule of right, but also as the law of 
God. The standard of revelation is recognized as being 
given by God for the guidance of man. Under such con- 
ditions, morality is practised, at least in the fear, perhaps in 
the love, of God. But here we have the manifestation of 
another form of life, namely, the religious. In the con- 
sciousness of the moralist, of society at large as moral, the 
consciousness of God is not developed. If it exist at all, 
it is in a state of dormancy, repressed by the exaggerated 
developments of the other elements of consciousness. 
Self and the world exclusively occupy the soul's attention ; 
man is entirely absorbed in the contemplation of these 
objects. The consciousness of God being suppressed, the 
religious element exercises no influence upon the character 
and conduct. Morality under such conditions has of course 
no relation to God ; its practice must spring from other 
motives. The true moral life, apart from the religious 
elements, consists in this, that in it the moral judgments, 



Il6 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

the current standard of morality, become the rule of a 
man's conduct simply because he feels that it is right. 
The man is moral, so far as his light goes, rather than 
immoral, because his conscience approves of the one course 
and condemns the other. Such a man is under the con- 
trol of his moral faculty. The moral life exists in him, 
and is realized. That it is realized, is owing entirely to 
this, that the rule of duty is lowered. The standard by 
which society regulates its conduct is, as we have seen, far 
below the Christian standard. It is a diluted, adulterated 
rule, illegitimately adapted to the sinful creature. The 
object in view being to admit of the realization of the 
moral life, and at the same time to allow of full latitude in 
the gratification of other lower and evil forms of life — in 
fine, a compromise between good and evil. Christian 
society has then three moral standards : first, that of 
revelation ; next, that of the Church ; and lastly, that of 
society apart from the Church, what may be termed the 
world. Under the first two the moral law is felt to be 
obligatory because it is of God ; here morality becomes a 
religious obedience or godliness. Under the last, the 
moral law is recognized as obligatory because of the judg- 
ment of a voice within, because it is felt to be the law of 
right. Conformity to such a standard, under such con- 
ditions, is morality. Society presents a standard ; it offers 
it as its law, enacts it, and it becomes the law of public 
opinion. This then is the standard of the world. The 
man in whom the moral life makes itself felt conforms to 
this standard because he judges it to be right and good. 
In its observance he enjoys the pleasure of self-approba- 
tion, flatters his sense of self-sufiiciency, at the same time 
he secures the esteem of his fellow-men ; here then we have 
before us an instance of an ungodly, irreligious, and yet a 
moral man, a man conscientiously regulating his conduct 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 11/ 

in accordance with a certain standard of morality, not that 
of revelation, not that even of the Church, but that of the 
world. 

Moral laws, as we have seen, theoretically considered, 
arise out of the classification and generalization of individual 
moral judgments ; embodied in a code, they stand out be- 
fore the consciousness as a standard of morality. By the 
law of assimilation this standard passes from the outward to 
the inward, the known becomes felt. The outward stand- 
ard becomes an inward conscience, approving and disap- 
proving, binding and loosing. But this process of the 
outward letter becoming inward spirit is gradual. Moral 
law in its primary conception is but the formula for the 
action of spirit in the sphere of right and wrong. Observe 
the process of moral education : first, there is an external 
law revealed and written, or traditional and existing as 
current public opinion. These standards are to be con- 
sidered, in the first place, as external ; the object of moral 
education is to make them internal. The Church, in theory, 
aims at making the revealed law internal ; the world aims 
at the same thing with its standard. The object in both is 
to make letter spirit, to make outward law inward life. 
Where this point is reached, the outward, as form, can dis- 
appear; man is no longer under law; he is a law unto 
himself; his moral education is completed. The man who 
has completed his education under the revealed standard, 
will, in all cases, naturally decide just as the revealed law 
would; "he who is educated under the world's standard will 
judge, naturally, just as it does. The judgment of the in- 
dividual and the voice of public opinion will always sound 
in harmony. This process of the passage of the outward 
into the inward is necessarily gradual ; for a long time the 
conscience must stand with respect to the outward law in 
the relation of pupil to teacher ; and the higher the stand- 



Il8 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

ard the longer this relation must continue. In the case of 
the revealed law, the standard being perfection, this re- 
lation never ceases, nor can. from the nature of the case 
until human nature becomes perfect ; as long as man lives, 
he will be obliged to consult the revealed standard as a 
guide for his conduct. Man properly, then, must ever re- 
main a pupil under the divine law. As a pupil of the 
world's morality, he can however soon change his relation 
and become a teacher. The standard of the world can 
easily be assimilated and made his own ; from this stand- 
point a finished moral education is possible, and when that 
is accomplished, provided the moral life exist, it may be 
realized. If it does not exist, or if repressed, of course 
the conduct will be immoral ; but it will be so consciously. 
The man who under such circumstances is vicious, is so in 
the face of his moral convictions. 

The object of moral education is, then, to transplant a 
given outward standard into the inner moral consciousness — 
to convert law, precept, and example into inward dispo- 
sition and life. Thus a proper basis is laid for the realiza- 
tion of the moral life. The Church, if true to itself, has 
one ideal, the world another. Under each of them the 
moral life in its realization consists in a conformity with its 
respective standard. In the Church the religious element 
is necessarily introduced, and morality becomes godliness. 
The morality of the world is apart from religion — it is the 
product of a lower form of life. The first manifestation of 
life is in desire ; the moral life, where it is found, exists 
first in the form of virtuous desires ; yielded to, desires be- 
come habits. So the desire of virtue becomes a virtuous 
habit, and conformity to a moral standard becomes the 
habit of the soul ; the moral life is realized, the con- 
science is quiet, the soul rests. Self-complacency rests in 
the consciousness of its own self-sufficiency. Such a con- 



WHAT IS RELIGION? II9 

dition is compatible with a state of absolute irreligion, with 
enmity to God on the one hand, or Atheism on the other. 
Under the world's standard the realization of the moral 
life is practicable ; under the real Christian ideal it is im- 
possible. The first is a delusion, the second is the truth. 
The realization of the Christian ideal is an impossibility, 
because the moral life has its root in man. It is a natural 
form of human life, an element entirely human. It issues 
out of man's sense of self-sufficiency, and what is essen- 
tially imperfect can never possibly of itself be perfect. The 
acceptance of a false standard may foster such a delusion. 
Christianity begins by dispelling it; first, it shatters man's 
pride, then reconstructs the perfect man through faith 
in the Son of God. ^ 



CHAPTER II. 

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. 



THE religious life arises out of the conjunction of two 
psychical facts, — the consciousness of God, and of 
moral guilt ; looking from one to the other, the soul be- 
comes disturbed ; on the one hand, there is the Holy God, 
on the other a sinful self, fear arises. The religious life is 
the effort to keep down this fear, to keep up a spiritual 
equilibrium. The soul does not to itself recognize the fact 
of its guilt, it can scarcely be said to have become a fact 
in the consciousness ; undefined, unrecognized, it is an 
impulse ; a ground-swell, indicating the existence of a dis- 
tant storm ; kept within these bounds, this ill-defined sense 
of guilt, in conjunction with the consciousness of a Holy 



120 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

God, gives rise to a feeling of uneasiness, or fear of God, 
and of the future, which fear, in its turn, gives rise to the 
religious life. The object of the religious life is to quench 
this fear, to keep down all uneasiness, and this it does by 
works; it is a life of self, not of faith. Not kept within 
these limits, this undefined sense of guilt will continue to 
grow more definite, until finally, bursting all barriers, it will 
present itself before the consciousness as an insatiable, 
agonizing reality. The religious life then, while it has, as 
a constant element, the consciousness of God, has as its 
other element a varying quantity, — beginning in an unde- 
fined feeling, ending in an actual recognized fact of con- 
sciousness. 

The first element observable in the religious life is the 
consciousness of God. The moral life, as we have seen, is 
consistent with a state of irreligion ; it was deficient there- 
fore as to this element ; it required nothing further than a 
standard of morality and a potential moral faculty. But 
here the consciousness of God is the leading psychical ele- 
ment, and corresponding to the moral faculty under the 
moral life, is the fear of God as a motive power. To stifle 
this fear, religious life comes into action, at once it assumes 
a religious profession, and inquires scrupulously as to the 
will of God. This will being known, the religious life 
asserts itself in an anxious effort to conform to it. As to 
the standard adopted, seeing that the effort is to obtain 
immediate peace, it is not probable that it will be the per- 
fect one of Revelation ; no sooner is that standard fairly 
erected before the soul, than it must feel its impractica- 
bility. Such a standard, so far from bringing peace, must 
only intensify the uneasiness. The standard then which 
will be adopted in order to obtain the desired object will 
not be a true, but a false one ; the soul will act here just 
as it did in the case of the moral life : it will dilute, adul- 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 121 

terate and lower the true standard ; it strikes a compro- 
mise, so that it can at the same time serve God and mam- 
mon. The religious life will appear to be realized, inas- 
much as God's will, according to such a standard, is ob- 
served. The carnal life is at the same time gratified, inas- 
much as its desires are indulged. There is a vast differ- 
ence between being religious and being regenerate ; man 
in his natural condition is religious ; to be regenerate is to 
be in a supernatural condition. In the religious man, the 
religious life is realized, in the regenerate, the Divine. 

Consciousness of God, the prime psychical element in 
the religious life, necessitates a Theism. In order of 
logic, the one precedes the other; but in order of nature 
they are contemporaneous. The nature of the Theistic 
idea necessarily exercises a decided influence in the direc- 
tion of the religious life. What a man worships, that will 
he strive to imitate. The law of assimilation will be 
brought into operation, and man will always be found 
approximating to the character of the God or gods that he 
worships. Deprived of the attributes of holiness and jus- 
tice, the Deity would not be an object of dread, the motive 
of fear would therefore cease to operate ; under such cir- 
cumstances, the law of assimilation would have to take its 
place. This, however, practically never does occur, for 
heathenism has ever been unable to divest its deity of the 
attribute of the terrible. Christianity attributes to its God 
the attributes of holiness and justice ; therefore, under this 
system, the Deity must, in connection with sinful man, be 
always in the first place the object of dread. 

There are several attitudes which the soul may take with 
respect to God ; in all of them it is, of course, necessary, in 
the first place, that the consciousness of God exist. Un- 
conscious of God, the soul takes no cognizance of Him. It 
is as though He was not : the soul is in a state of Atheism. 



122 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

But supposing this consciousness to exist in the soul, it may 
in the first place be regardless of God^ He may fail to be 
an influence in the direction of man's conduct. In the 
second place, God may be the object of fear, or, in the 
third place, the object of love. As an object of fear, God, 
provided the moral law be considered as emanating from 
Him, must become an influence within the soul. 

It is evident that the soul, in the consciousness of a God 
whom it fears, must feel itself impelled to obedience ; it 
will fear to disobey, and therefore it will obey. Affirma- 
tively, the motive is against disobedience, and so negatively 
for obedience. In the irreligious state, man fails to con- 
nect the moral law with God as its Giver. Regarding it as 
human, he feels no higher obligation to obedience than 
that arising out of the conscience. The moral life, as we 
have seen, in its obedience to law, takes no cognizance of 
any other than this human obligation. The religious life 
does not ignore this association ; it, too, recognizes the 
moral judgments as the rule of right ; but it also connects 
this rule with God as the Giver of it. It views God as ap- 
proving of conformity with this law, and disapproving of 
non-conformity — therefore, as pleased with morality, dis- 
pleased and angry with immorality. There are, then, two 
motives at work in the religious life : the motive which 
conscience brings into action, and that which a fear of 
offending a Holy God brings in. The standard which 
may be assumed as the rule of obedience, may either be 
the one written in the heart, or that outward one of Revela- 
tion. The first is necessarily that of tradition, and, practi- 
cally speaking, it must ever be the prevalent moral stand- 
ard, which finds its expression in the voice of public 
opinion. The only other is that of Revelation ; this, as we 
have seen, may be so diluted and adulterated as to find 
the level of a heathen standard. As it is, from the material 



WHAT IS RELIGION? I23 . 

thus afforded, the world has formed one standard, the 
Church another — both of them far below the original. 
Whatever standard may, however, be assumed as the true 
one, under the religious consciousness, it becomes adopted 
as the rule of life, and thenceforth an effort is made to con- 
form to it ; the prime motive to obedience being the fear 
of God. Now if this standard be that of Revelation, what 
result are we to expect? evidently a failure. The obedience 
of the fallen creature can never conform to the absolute rule 
of right, found in Revelation : what then will follow ? dis- 
appointment. Man will find that he cannot do what he 
would. The effect of such a failure will evidently be in- 
creased apprehension and intensified fear. Honestly com- 
paring its conduct with the standard of the perfect law, the 
soul cannot but become cognizant of the discrepancy exist- 
ing between the two. In the beginning it feared to offend 
God, and therefore its effort of obedience ; the effort proves 
a failure ; the fear of the soul can therefore only be in- 
creased and intensified. Such a state would border on 
that of guilt, and would, if honestly dealt with, lead the 
soul to an inquiry whether there is not some other way, 
than its own perfect obedience, whereby it might stand 
righteous before God ; but dishonestly dealt with, it brings 
about ruin. Greatly disturbed by the state of things which 
this effort after obedience has disclosed, the soul natu- 
rally turns from one side to the other, seeking relief. It 
seeks to hide from itself its own shortcomings ; it dwells 
on its acts of obedience and on its righteousness, overlooks 
its unrighteousness. But the way which is found most 
effectual is that of lowering the standard of duty; the 
standard being lowered so as to allow of easy compliance, 
conformity becomes practicable, conscience becomes 
quieted, and the soul in the consciousness of conformity to 
such a standard ceases to be disturbed by the fear of God. 



124 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

Another way in which this same result is effected is by 
mutilating the character of God ; following its own incli- 
nation, the soul forms a one-sided idea of the Deity, all 
the benign aspects of the Divine character are paraded be- 
fore the mind's eye, all that is stern and exacting is kept 
out of view. The soul manages to deceive itself, and the 
idea which is adopted is untrue ; this idea, however, is but 
in the intellect ; the soul cannot be persuaded ; its felt pro- 
test cannot be silenced ; on the one hand, the man would 
persuade himself there is no reason to fear — God is all 
merciful, all good, all love ; on the other hand, as a psychi- 
cal fact, there does exist fear, disquietude, and uneasiness. 
The religious and the moral consciousness agree in this, 
that in both the moral life exists and is realized ; but they 
also differ, the religious has in it as an influential fact the 
consciousness of God. Under it morality is practised, not 
only because it is right, but further, because it is the will 
of God. It is this connection that elevates the latter above 
the former, and makes morality godliness. It takes right 
and wrong out of the region of ethics and makes them 
religious ; thus the fear of God is evidently the beginning 
of wisdom. 

Conformity to moral law may be practised from various 
motives. When practised under the force of moral con- 
viction, because it is right, then properly it is morality. 
The truly moral man is the man who abides by his convic- 
tions, who acts from principle, who would disdain doing a 
wrong action, who would despise himself in being unprin- 
cipled. It is his own sense of right and wrong that actuates 
him in his conduct — his sense of honor, as it is called ; when 
there is nothing to fall back upon but one's own moral 
sensitiveness in matters of right and wrong, then that which 
governs a man in his conduct is what is known as his sense 
of honor. The man who shocks his sense of honor loses 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 125 

his self-respect, he must despise himself. Self-respect 
taken in conjunction with moral sensitiveness are the roots 
from which the moral life springs. There is too a spurious 
form of the moral life, where the first of these factors only 
is present ; where the moral faculty is not developed, the 
true moral life will be an impossibility. Sense of honor 
can only produce a spurious morality, a discrepancy will 
be found to exist between the inner and the outer life. It 
will be the common case of the whited sepulchre, outside 
white and fair, inside full of dead men's bones. It is the 
conscience alone which regulates the inner life ; honestly 
dealt with, it will keep the inside, according to its light, 
clean and clear. It keeps watch and ward over the inner 
workings of the heart. It sees and knows everything, it 
alone is the power that can keep the inner man clean. 
Sense of honor will only keep the outside in order ; its true 
meaning is Pride, and its only aim is to keep fair with the 
world ; what it fears is exposure ; foulness will be ever 
cherished within, abomination will be practised in secret ; 
yet withal, provided there be no disclosure, men will re- 
tain their self-respect, and be sensitive about wounding their 
honor. Sense of honor then, means, fear of being known 
to be what one in reality is. It is consistent with the 
vilest hypocrisy, and generally accompanies it. This 
avoidance of open vice from self-respect is not morality ; 
the moral life is not a sham, it is a reality. In the abstract 
it exists j that it is to be found in the concrete is another 
question. The concrete seldom gives us things distinctly 
separated ; abstraction can take out the separate elements, 
examine them, and show that they are really distinct. But 
in the unity of the personal life all the elements of charac- 
ter, all the motives to action are so inextricably mixed, 
that it is impossible to say whether they ever do exist and 
operate separately. They are separable, but perhaps never 



126 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

absolutely separated ; thus it is found that pride and prin- 
ciple generally operate together. As motive powers they 
are separate, but in the moral life, they will be found to 
operate together. In the moral life, principle will, how- 
ever, be the predominating power, and is what character- 
izes this form of life. The morality of pride without prin- 
ciple is only specious, it has no real morality in it, it is the 
life of hypocrisy. 

There are other motives which give rise to specious 
forms of morality; but after all, they are only appear- 
ances, and will be found hollow and but forms of hypoc- 
risy. Then there Isl the morality of prudence and of utili- 
tarianism. Under such a scheme, the reality of right and 
wrong; that an action or course of conduct is right or 
wrong irrespective of its consequences ; that right and 
wrong are eternal virtues ; all this is ignored, or even 
denied. Right is declared to be that which is expedient, 
wrong that which is inexpedient. Prudence, then, and 
sagacity are the faculties for discovering the moral law ; 
the conscience as the ultimate self-revelation of the moral 
law is denied. Honesty, for instance, is right, why? be- 
cause it is the best policy ; and so with all other moral 
questions ; right is right, because it is expedient ; wrong is 
wrong, because it is inexpedient; a blunder is the most 
grievous of moral transgressions, in fact it is regarded in 
the light of a crime ; this certainly is not the moral life, it 
is the prudent life, the selfish life. The motives, then, so 
far considered, leading to a certain conformity to moral 
law, amount to these : principle, sense of honor, prudence. 
The first, abstractly considered, is the motive in the real 
moral life; the second, in the spurious moral life; the 
third, is no morality at all, it is acting in a certain way be- 
cause it is expedient. There is, in fact, no place for morals 
under such a scheme. In the actual life all these motives 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 12/ 

will be found operating, more or less, together ; it is the 
prevalence of any one of these that designates the form of 
life. Actually, as in the concrete, all these motives oper- 
ate more or less in the development of the moral life, and 
the same is true of the religious life. Abstractly, or rather 
theoretically, this form of life has but two roots : one 
fastens itself upon the fact of God in the consciousness ; 
the other, as in the moral life, fastens itself among the 
facts of conscience. The truly religious man acts from 
principle, in the fear of God ; morality becomes godliness. 
Man ceases to be ungodly and becomes godly and religious. 
The religious life, then, like the moral, is essentially human ; 
both are activities arising out of the conjunction of cer- 
tain elements which pertain to the essence of human 
nature ; both, then, are consistent with egotism and man's 
state of actual separation from God. Man being still in a 
state of egotism, the religious life will be attempted in his 
own strength ; having set up before him the standard of 
God's will, he will at once set to work in a self-reliant, 
self-sufficient spirit to conform to it. If the standard be 
such that he can conform to it, and he succeed, he will be 
complacent, boastful, and arrogant. This would give us 
the self-righteous man; the man who feels that he has 
obeyed the law, that his conscience is void of offence to- 
wards God and man ; the Pharisee, evidently not the Pub- 
lican. Such must be the character of the religious moral- 
ist, a self-righteous, egotistic formalist. This, we say, is 
the religious life in its own proper form of manifestation, 
here it exists in an ethico-religious form. A high moral 
standard is adopted, and conscientiously and religiously 
that standard in its letter is observed ; to this moral stand- 
ard is added a ritual of ceremonial observances which are 
punctiliously kept ; such was the religion of the Scribes 
and Pharisees in the time of Ghrist. Such was the religion 



128 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

of that young ruler, who could boldly say, ^ ' All these 
have I kept from my youth up, even until now." Such, 
too, was the religion of St. Paul while a Pharisee, who 
could say, ''As touching the righteousness of the law, I 
was blameless." Here we have the highest expression of 
the religious life, a punctilious, conscientious performance 
of all one's duties, so far as they are recognized, both 
moral and ceremonial ; and yet with all this the Divine life 
is not within the soul. The soul is still in a state of ego- 
tism, self-willed, self-sufficient, separated from God, rely- 
ing upon itself for salvation. All this earnest effort is still 
compatible with a hard, unloving spirit. And the man 
who fasts twice a week, who gives tithes of all that he pos- 
sesses, this same man, even while he prays, will be found 
in his egotism recounting his own righteousness, and 
despising the poor sinner who prays beside him. The 
same man who glories in his good deeds, and sounds a 
trumpet before him to proclaim them abroad, will be 
found neglecting justice, mercy, and truth ; when it can be 
done privately, will be found plundering widows' houses, 
and for a pretence making long prayers ; and yet this is 
the highest form of Religious life, where morality and cere- 
monial observance are coupled with it. 

1'he Religious life may exist in a state of immorality; it 
may be found where there is no moral light and power in the 
soul. The association of the moral law with God as its 
giver is the work of Revelation. It is possible that no such 
connection may be established in men's minds. Suppos- 
ing there be some knowledge of the law of right and 
wrong, and that knowledge to be entirely traditional or ob- 
tained only by the workings of the inner life, what is there 
that would enable man to refer and to connect this law 
with God ? no doubt he will be forced more or less to see 
that there is such a connection ; but there is nothing in the 



WHAT IS RELIGION? I29 

premises to convince him ; and so it happened in the ancient 
world that the two things were often found divorced : 
men felt the obligation to virtue, but felt no divine obliga- 
tion. In fact, their gods seem to have been allowed a dif- 
ferent and a lower standard than themselves, seem to have 
had no morality ; and under such circumstances it would be 
impossible to connect the moral law with God. Morality 
therefore was entirely separated from Religion. The gods 
were worshipped, not in spirit and in truth, but in a certain 
round of ceremonial observances, at the bottom of which 
lay the ancient revealed rite of sacrifice. A man might be 
as immoral as he pleased, and yet at the same time punc- 
tiliously religious. Lose sight of the fact that the moral 
law is the Divine law, and it is evident that such a condi- 
tion of things may easily ensue. Lose sight of this fact, 
and it would be impossible to form any idea as to the moral 
character of the Deity ; there would be nothing left to re- 
mind man that God is holy and hates iniquity. Epi- 
cureanism must inevitably prevail ; the voice of conscience 
will be quelled as troublesome, and vice will reign supreme. 
Immorality under such conditions would meet with no 
check ; and yet man might still be religious, that is to say, 
a consciousness of God might still be found in his soul, 
the Religious life might make itself felt, and its tendency 
might still be realized by the observance of the ceremonial 
code. There is very little doubt, that, unless the moral law 
be referred to God as the giver and vindicator, it will be 
suppressed. Whether this can be completely effected, is 
a question that can be settled only by fact. It is scarcely 
possible that there is any portion of the human family 
without a conscience, for in such a condition, there would 
be no longer any responsibility, and consequently no judg- 
ment. Theoretically it is possible that any of the funda- 
mental elements of human nature should be extinguished, 

I 



130 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

thus, that man should be found without any consciousness 
of God, without any conscience, without the power of 
reasoning ; but whether this actually is the case is far from 
probable. The question, we say, can only be satisfactorily 
answered by facts. Certain it is, however, that, dissociated 
from God, the moral law being repressed by unrighteous- 
ness, becomes rapidly lowered and adulterated. The moral 
life, as found in human nature, is insufficient to keep up the 
standard. Nothing that is in and of human nature can 
resist its own inherent downward moral tendency. That 
which is born of the flesh is after all but flesh. Revelation 
connects the moral law with God, it proclaims Him its 
vindicator, and foretells a future day of judgment. The 
believer in Revelation receives all these declarations as 
truths; he recognizes God as the giver of moral law; he 
fails to conform to this law, and yet he may realize the 
religious life. This is effected by means of the above- 
mentioned separation ; the moral and the ceremonial are 
separated, the one is set off against th^ other, and the loss 
in one is made up by a gain in the other. The Church 
assumes to be the vicar of God ; as such it becomes the 
custodian of the moral law. The vindication of this law 
lies with it, what it binds on earth is bound in heaven ; what 
it looses on earth is loosed in heaven. The Church then, in 
its head, or through its officers, is recognized by its mem- 
bers as the administrator of the moral law; its judgments 
being regarded as the judgments of God. A case occurs 
where the moral law is broken, the Church sits in judg- 
ment and pronounces its sentence, the offender must do 
penance ; the penance being performed, the Church pro- 
nounces absolution, and the man is then considered to be 
cleansed of moral guilt ; what it looses on earth is loosed in 
heaven ; the process is final and conclusive. Thus for spe- 
cific cases. To meet the innumerable number of such 



WHAT IS RELIGION? I3I 

cases which must occur, the Church, undertaking to act 
for God, has established laws — laws known as the sacra- 
ment of penance j certain punishments are allotted to cer- 
tain offences, the priest of the Church can apply these gen- 
eral laws; thus the tribunal of heaven is transferred to 
earth, and man can by means of penance expiate his guilt 
before the day of judgment. Moral guilt is thus finally 
dealt with here on earth before the tribunal of priests ; the 
sinner is punished in penance, and cleared of all guilt by 
absolution. Penance is a canonical ordinance ; a man may 
be punctiliously obedient to it, and yet licentiously disobe- 
dient to moral law ; he ceases to fear God in his disobe- 
dience, because the Church is his god, and he knows that 
though he break her commandments, yet he can easily sat- 
isfy her, and atone for his sin by undergoing her penances. 
Thus it happens that gross immorality and strict religious- 
ness may often be found combined, and the reason of it is 
because the Church has assumed the place of vindicator of 
the moral law, and is recognized in such a capacity by its 
members. Thus we find men very religious and very im- 
moral. 

Antinomianism is another form of this paradox. Under 
this state of mind, the connection between the moral law 
and God is recognized, and also the obligation to obedi- 
ence ; but it is executed in a careless and negligent way. 
The Solifidian believing that he is justified only by his 
faith, that his own moral character is of no consequence, 
becomes careless in his conduct. He is careless in the an- 
ticipation of transgression, because he knows that after he 
sins he has only to continue to believe as he does then, 
that he is accepted on Christ's account, and not on his own, 
and he will in reality continue justified and comfortable. 
He is indifferent to the past on the same grounds, and thus 
there is the combination of belief that a man is accepted 



132 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

with God on account of the merits of His Son, and yet 
that the observance of His own moral law is not to be re- 
garded as essential. Such a belief, if entering fully into 
the consciousness, works a carelessness in the moral prac- 
tice, it staves off all feeling of regret for past sin, thus add- 
ing indifference to carelessness. If a man, a bad man, be 
persuaded that Christ has died for sinners, and that, there- 
fore, he need not fear a day of reckoning, he will only be- 
come worse, become a more fearless, calculating, hardened 
sinner. It is fear that keeps villany in check ; remove that 
fear of a day of reckoning, and at once you open the flood- 
gates of vice and crime. The law continues in all ages to 
keep down transgression. To persuade an unrepentant, 
bad man into faith in this doctrine is only to make him a 
hardened villain. 

At various times in the history of Christianity we find 
men, and even sects, who have really adhered to such 
tenets. Ascetics, displaying, on the one hand, many Chris- 
tian virtues, while on the other they were guilty of the 
grossest immoralities. While they aimed at spirituality, 
they practised immorality, and the same thing has been 
repeated in modern times. The period of the Reforma- 
tion was rife with such exhibitions, the excesses of the Ana- 
baptists of Munzer, and his fifth-monarchy men, and much 
that occurred during the prevalence of the Puritan move- 
ment in England, all is attributable to this same cause. 
The believers of this doctrine felt themselves to be not un- 
der law, but under grace j being then freed from the law, 
they gave themselves up to be the servants, not of right- 
eousness, but of sin. Thus, though they were superstitious 
and religious just as the Athenians were, they were like 
them, consciously immoral. 

Freedom from law may be premature; no man is at 
liberty to free himself. "If the Son make us free, 
then are we free indeed." But how does he effect 



WHAT IS RELIGION? I33 

this ? by making the external, internal ; by writing the 
law in our hearts, and so making us a law unto our- 
selves ; by giving us His spirit, which is the law of God 
in its essence. Man is never without law. Either he is 
under law, as in the legal state, or the law is in him, which 
is the Gospel state. No man can effect this change for 
himself; it is not an historical, but an internal act, and 
can be effected only by the power of Christ. To free our- 
selves is an act of self-will. Yet this is exactly what such 
spurious believers do. The law, they say, is dead to us 
through Christ ; we are not under the law, but under grace. 
The law was made for sinners ; we are saints, members of 
the kingdom of Christ ; and they go so far as to despise 
civil dignitaries, they become revolutionists, disturbers of 
the public peace, licentious, looking upon all order as an 
infringement upon the freedom of the saint. Thus Munzer 
and others of his order would set up a new kingdom upon 
earth, in which there was no civil law or order, where 
every man could act just as he pleased. Such in its finality 
is the development of this doctrine ; it ends in overturning 
all that is just and lawful and decent ; and yet this is done 
in the name of religion, and such fanatics would cheerfully 
suffer as martyrs for their cause. Here, then, under the 
head of Antinomianism, we have before us a religion of 
immorality ; the Religious life and the immoral life de- 
veloped side by side. In the preceding case, the moral 
and the ceremonial were separated, negligence in the one 
was compensated for by punctiliousness in the other. In 
this case the same separation occurs, and disregard of the 
moral is compensated for by a presumptuous confidence ; 
thus the Religious life is realized, and at the same time man 
fearlessly continues in sin. In this latter case, perhaps, 
** continuing in sin that grace may abound." 
There is yet another form under which religiousness may 
12 



134 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

be found, as manifesting itself under the conditions of 
Christianity. The object of the moral law, as we have 
seen, is to restrain the outbursts of the sinful principle. 
Christianity, penetrating much deeper, looks to the source 
from whence these outbursts flow ; it aims not at the out- 
ward manifestation, but at the inward life. Thus, instead 
of, *' thou shalt not steal," it commands, ''thou shalt not 
covet ;" instead of, ''thou shalt do no murder," "he that 
hateth is a murderer ;" it strikes at the very root of sin, for- 
bidding desires and feelings, which, if cherished, must 
necessarily result in acts. It prevents the acts by forbid- 
ding desire and feelings. All inordinate and unlawful af- 
fections or desires, termed lusts, are strictly forbidden. 
The standard of Christianity is therefore not merely mo- 
rality, but purity ; it is only to the pure in heart that it 
holds out the promise of seeing God. The Christian life 
is, then, to be an approximation to, and, if possible, a con- 
formity with this standard. All around the Christian there 
are objects and occasions which may give rise to these for- 
bidden desires. These objects and occasions are then to 
be viewed in the light of temptations. In order to avoid 
the possibility of having either unlawful or inordinate 
desires excited, the Christian law forbids its disciple en- 
tering into temptation. Thus the Christian life becomes 
one of self-denial. He is forbidden doing certain things 
and enjoying certain pleasures, which those not under such 
a law do and enjoy. He is forbidden them because, in 
the first place, they tend to excite inordinate desires, which 
in their turn must become unruly, and hurry one into 
actual sin. In short, the Christian is to avoid all occa- 
sions and things which in any way tend to excite or inflame 
unlawful feelings and desires. Thus the Scriptures repre- 
sent the Christian life as one of self-denial, of suffering, of 
taking up a cross, as "a gate which is strait, and away 



WHAT IS RELIGION? I35 

which is narrow, and few there be which find it." Now 
there is one form of Christianity that enters upon the 
Christian Hfe without having any idea of conformity to 
such a spiritual standard. The moral law, perhaps, it will 
adopt, avoiding any open and flagrant outburst of sin. 
There are Christians who hold that they are not responsible 
for the existence of lusts and evil appetites and affections, 
who do not regard such desires as sin. There are others 
who regard it as perfectly legitimate and consistent with 
their profession to tamper with those objects which excite 
lusts. Thus they will throw themselves continually in the 
way of temptation ; they will enjoy pleasure and pursue 
objects which can only inflame and strengthen dangerous 
desires, until the desire becomes a habit, and is pandered 
to without the slightest compunction. Instead of cutting 
themselves off from the possibility of sin, they put them- 
selves directly in the way of it. Thus, the man who has 
been injured, instead of striving to banish the subject from 
his mind, by continually keeping it before him will natu- 
rally excite a feeling of hatred and a desire for revenge. 
The man who is a sensualist, instead of avoiding all occa- 
sions apt to excite his appetites, will greedily rush upon 
them and inflame his passions until they become inordi- 
nate and ungovernable. There are those who undertake the 
Christian life without any idea of thus meeting and repress- 
ing their desires; wilfully they cherish evil feelings, and 
without any compunction take part in those pleasures which 
inflame lust, and which those not under the Christian law 
enjoy; their life, so far from being one of self-denial, is 
one of self-indulgence ; gross immorality is avoided, but 
impurity and worldliness reign unchecked. Combined with 
this laxity in Christian practice, there is to be found great 
punctiliousness in the performance of certain ceremonial 
observances ; carefulness in this respect stands as a set-off 



136 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

against carelessness in the other, the importance of ordi- 
nances becomes unduly exaggerated ; the whole stress in the 
religious life is laid upon the observance of them. Thus a 
man becomes at the same time a strict Churchman, but a lax 
Christian. Moral decorum and punctilious ritualism exist on 
the one hand ; carnality, worldly-mindedness, and perhaps 
sensuality on the other ; rigidity and laxity exist in con- 
junction. The aspirations of the religious life are met, 
and at the same time self is indulged. Thus the Christian 
life is reduced to the level of the natural life, and man, sat- 
isfactorily to himself, worships both God and Mammon. 

There is still another form of the Religious life, the con- 
ditions of which are such as to bring it within the possibil- 
ity of the divine life in the soul. That which distinguishes 
the Religious life essentially from the Divine, is, that it is a 
life of self and of works, whereas the Divine is that of God 
and faith. The Religious life is man's own, arising out of 
the development of the consciousness of God in the soul. 
Under these conditions, it is the effort of self to please God, 
to recommend one's self by one's own works. The Di- 
vine life, on the other hand, is not man's own ; but the life 
of God, introduced and kept in the soul by faith. The 
soul becoming awakened, becomes at once active in the 
effort to satisfy the demands of this state ; necessarily with- 
out faith, it is forced to fall back upon its own efforts ; and 
the religion of the soul, under such conditions, will con- 
sist in a series of acts, with the view of calming the con- 
science, and of reconciling the soul consciously to God ; 
no undertaking will be regarded as too arduous to accom- 
plish this object; self-maceration, protracted fasts, cease- 
less vigils, and incessant prayers, all will be resorted to in 
order to obtain a sense of peace with God ; but with all, 
the soul may continue to be dissatisfied and miserable, 
nothing it can do may bring the desired peace. Without 



WHAT IS RELIGION? I37 

anything further, it is evident that such must continue to 
be the condition of the soul ; the whole life must continue 
to be one of depression, suffering, and of hopeless spiritual 
misery. The great object which the soul proposes, upon 
being awakened, is to obtain a consciousness of peace with 
God. It is the nature of the Religious life, under this 
form, to obtain this peace of itself by its own works. The 
struggles of the soul, in its vain efforts, are sometimes fright- 
ful to witness, and are agony to endure ; witness the mis- 
ery and frantic efforts of Martin Luther, of Ignatius Loy- 
ola, and of innumerable other earnest awakened sinners. 
Some in despair, others wrestling in a life-long agony of 
prayer. Witness the whole hosts of hermits, and ascetics 
driven by myriads into the wilderness, and into dens and 
caves, simply by an awakened conscience, flying the world 
in order that unimpeded they might attain to a peace unto 
which every energy of the soul was bent in determination. 
The usual symptoms attending this condition are not 
always so decided. Under the conditions of the awakened 
conscience, religious life will manifest itself, generally, in a 
continued state of spiritual depression ; the hope of the soul, 
if any, will be faint ; of consciousness of peace with God 
there will be none ; fear and trembling will take the place 
of love and filial confidence, and the soul, uneasy as to its 
state before God, and yet anxious, will pass its whole life 
in one protracted struggle by means of its works and acts 
of devotion, to render itself acceptable unto God. Such, 
we say, is a form of the Religious, not of the Divine life ; it 
is a life of works, not of faith. There are certain condi- 
tions under which the Religious life must evince its insuffi- 
ciency, and here we have such a condition. The dim, 
undefined sense of guilt, that in conjunction with the con- 
sciousness of God makes itself sensible in uneasiness and 
fear of God, that feeling having gradually increased, thus 
12* 



138 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

finally manifests itself in an outburst of conscious guilt. 
It is the object of the Religious life to repress this con- 
sciousness, and when realized, this effect is really accom- 
plished ; but here the Religious life fails, it is unable to 
repress the soul's uneasiness, fear of God becomes more 
and more distressing. The Religious life cannot satisfy 
these demands ; and man feels the necessity for the inter- 
vention of a higher form of life, before he can attain to the 
desired peace. 

To conclude; the Religious life is man's effort, of, and 
by himself, to attain to righteousness ; it has faith in it, but 
it is faith in self. While the moral standard is low, and 
the sense of guilt repressed, it is a success. Let either of 
these facts be reversed and it becomes at once a failure. 
In direct contrast with it stands the Divine life ; like it, a 
life of faith, not, however, in self but in God; — a life 
which meets all the demands of human nature, proving 
successful in the presence of the loftiest moral standard, 
coupled with the profoundest consciousness of guilt. 



WHAT IS RELIGION? I39 

CHAPTER III. 

THE DIVINE LIFE. 

THE fundamental difference between the Religious and 
the Divine life is this. The Religious life is a man's 
own ; it is an activity, a potentiality, residing originally in 
human nature. It is man relying upon himself, striving to 
realize righteousness. On the other hand, the Divine life is 
not man's own ; it is the life of God, a potency residing origi- 
nally not in human nature, but in Christ, the God-man, the 
Mediator ; by Him, by faith in Him, it is introduced into 
human nature, and even there it is not man's own ; but is 
retained only under the same condition of faith. It is, in 
contradistinction to the egotism of the Religious life, man 
in humility surrendering himself to be formed of God. In 
relation to activity, it is man working in reliance upon 
God ; man working in fear and trembling, since it is God 
that worketh in us both to will and to do. 

In order to reduce human nature to the condition adapt- 
ed to the development of the life of faith, a preparatory 
work is necessary. The state of egotism has to be entirely 
broken up, and man's alienation must be converted into a 
state of love and filial dependence. In order to effect this, 
the first thing necessary is that man should be brought to 
recognize the truth as to his present condition ; what he is, 
what is his real internal spiritual condition, and how, such 
as he is, he stands related to God. Human nature, as it 
stands, is self-deceived; man remains unconscious of his 
true condition — he imagines himself whole, when in reality 
he is foully diseased. To bring out this disease and make 
it evident to him who is its subject, is the first thing to be 



I40 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

done. The disease under which man labors is evil in its 
incarnate form ; it is sin. Man is a sinful, guilty creature ; 
and it is of this fact, in the first place, that he must be 
made conscious. Sin, then, and guilt, in order to be 
brought as facts before the consciousness, must become 
actual facts ; a law must be given ; man must find himself 
under law, and then in the act of transgression, the fact 
of his sinfulness and of his guilt will become manifest to 
him. Without law, sin cannot be recognized as such. 
Man must, therefore, under such conditions, remain uncon- 
scious of his sinfulness. 

The method pursued by the Religious life in order to its 
realization, is to conceal from man his sinfulness, and to 
repress in him all feeling of guilt. The object at which it 
aims is to banish all uneasiness, all fear as to God and the 
hereafter ; and so to keep the soul quiescent in a dream 
of self-satisfaction. The object aimed at in order to the 
introduction of the Divine life within the soul, stands in 
direct opposition to that of the preceding. Primarily, the 
soul is blind ; it is ignorant and unconscious as to its true 
condition ; egotism holds it fast bound in the fetters of self- 
deception. The condition which the Divine life requires 
in order to its introduction within the soul, is that this de- 
lusion be at once dispelled ; the scales must fall from the 
eyes, the soul must be awakened to the true state of the 
case, must realize and become conscious of its true condi- 
tion. The method which is pursued is not then that which 
is employed under the Religious life ; there the standard of 
morality was lowered, and the first movements of the soul 
in the instinctive feeling of its guilt, were repressed. Here, 
on the contrary, the standard is elevated, the absolute per- 
fection required by the true Divine law given in Revelation, 
and exhibited in the person of the God-man, is erected be- 
fore the soul. The absolute requirements of the moral law 



WHAT IS RELIGION? I4I 

are brought in contact, by an external spiritual influence, 
with the self-willed movements of an unregenerated nature. 
The revolt of the soul, under such a standard and under 
such a law, brings clearly out before the consciousness the 
fact of man's sinfulness, and the continual transgression of 
the positive commandments reiterates and deepens the 
fact of guilt within the soul. 

The great object to be effected is to make man conscious 
of his sinfulness and of his guilt; to make him dissatisfied 
with himself, frightened at the appalling revelation of what 
is the state of things within ; to humble him, and so to 
bring him to a sense of his need of succor from without. 
In fine, completely to break up the state of egotism, and to 
bring man, in an humble penitential frame, to rely, not 
upon himself, but upon his God for salvation. Observe, 
then, the leading points by which this change is effected. 
First, a consciousness of sinfulness and guilt ; out of this 
condition there arises, in the second place, a fear of God, 
and a sense of man's own impotency. So far self-revela- 
tion works only a further separation; without something 
further, the soul must succumb under the horrors of despair. 
Here, then, in the third place, we are to consider the ob- 
jects of faith presented in the work of redemption by Jesus 
Christ. Upon these, the soul in the spirit of faith lays 
hold. Faith, in this work of redemption, restores the soul 
to the conscious condition of peace with God. Peace being 
restored, the soul, in view of God and his work of redemp- 
tion, assumes now for the first time the position of filial 
relationship towards Him. Love and a filial confidence 
take the place of fear and distrust; and the soul, in the 
confidence of an Almighty Father's and an all-sufficient Sa- 
viour's proffered help, enters upon the career of obedience. 

The characteristic condition of the soul, preparatory to 
the introduction of the Divine life into it, consists in a pro- 



142 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

found consciousness of its sinfulness and guilt. Is such, 
we ask, the state of the soul in its primary natural condi- 
tion ? Is the soul self-conscious of its sinfulness and guilt ? 
Evidently, no. The Moral state gives us no such facts ; it 
gave us self-complacency and self-sufficiency ; it gave us a 
course of conduct corresponding with the judgments of the 
moral faculty, and therefore a state of self-satisfaction. 
Nor does the Religious life present to us any such facts j the 
whole object of this form is to keep these facts out of view. 
The standard of the moral law being adapted to the infirm- 
ities of the creature, he is able, satisfactorily to himself, to 
conform to it. The movements of a disturbed moral sense 
are carefully suppressed, or satisfied by the observance of 
an irksome ceremonial. Thus, the moral sense being re- 
pressed, the fact of guilt is kept under, never being allowed 
to present itself before the consciousness. Nor will we 
find these facts existing under the lawless state. Where 
there is no law, there can be no actual transgression ; where 
there is no knowledge of law, of course there can be no 
consciousness of sin. To know the law will not prove 
sufficient, the external must become internal ; the law must 
become assimilated by the conscience, before sin can be- 
come a fact of the consciousness, before it can be felt to 
be guilt, and the actor can feel himself to be sinful. The 
lawless condition is without law ; either it is originally un- 
known, or has been so frequently ignored as to have ceased 
to be recognized. The soul is indifferent, and perfectly re- 
gardless of the requirements of law; the law of its lusts 
is the only one which, in its self-will, it recognizes. It is 
evidently impossible for sin to be recognized as such with- 
out law. Sin cannot be imputed where there is no law. 
Man could not recognize in himself affections and desires 
as evil, unless there was some law made known to him, 
prohibiting them. Thus, St. Paul tells us, he had not 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 143 

known lust except the law had said ''Thou shalt not 
covet;" that is, he could not have recognized in him- 
self desire as being evil, without such a positive prohibi- 
tion. Of the desires which are found in human nature, 
some in their very beginning can be recognized under the 
law as evil, others can be recognized as good ; but the law 
coming in, prohibits their exercise in certain directions; 
desire thus becomes lust. Even the malignant feelings 
could not be recognized by man as evil unless there was 
some moral light in him. Doubtless, there is but a small 
portion of the human race, if any, which is without any 
moral light. Such feelings can only, however, be recog- 
nized as evil under the illumination of such inner light. 
The moral law of revelation, in precept, in ccwximand- 
ment and example, brings clearly to light the good and the 
evil. Its prohibitions at once designate the evil, its re- 
quirements exhibit the good. The knowledge of this law 
enables man at once to recognize the evil ; and when the 
moral faculty is developed within him, he feels the ob- 
ligation of abstaining from it and of cultivating the good. 
Having this knowledge, in the act of transgressing one of 
these positive commandments, man cannot but know that he 
has been guilty, and cannot but conclude, by inference, 
that there is a lawless principle within him. But such an 
intellectual assent or conviction is not equivalent to a con- 
sciousness of these facts. Man may know that he is a 
transgressor — that he is guilty and a sinful being — and 
yet be far from conscious of what these things mean. 
Such knowledge lies merely in the intellect — in the per- 
ceiving, reasoning faculty ; it has not entered into the heart 
and become a fact of the consciousness. 

There are, besides the Divine life, but three conditions 
in which human nature can find itself: first, the condition 
of the moral life ; second, that of the religious life ; and 



144 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

third, that of the lawless condition. Under none of these 
will we find the facts of the consciousness of sin and guilt 
developed. These three conditions give us all that human 
nature is and is capable of in its natural condition. All of 
them are contained under the category of egotism, all are 
consistent with a complete separation and alienation from 
the true God. 

It is essential to the nature of law that it should be en- 
forced by a sanction. Law is either imperative, or it is pro- 
hibitive. As imperative, it seeks its enforcement by offer- 
ing a reward. As prohibitive, it is enforced by means of 
punishment. On the one hand, it says, *' Do this and 
live; " on the other, " Cursed is he that doeth not all the 
things t^at are commanded." Doing good is commended 
and rewarded ; doing evil is cursed and punished. It is 
not that good and evil are made so by law. To steal, to 
lie, to commit adultery, is not evil because prohibited under 
a positive statute. Apart from all such prohibition they are 
evil. But without holiness or moral purity this would not 
be perceived. Evil cannot be recognized as such by an 
evil creature. It requires the presence of the moral good, 
which in relation to evil becomes holiness, before evil can 
be appreciated as such. The holier the being, the more 
will it be able to appreciate evil, the greater will be his 
horror of and disgust with it. Moral evil, and its opposite, 
moral purity, or holiness, can exist only in association with 
a sentient, intellectual, and moral Being. The holy Being 
is one whose moral nature is absolutely pure and perfect. 
The evil Being is one whose moral nature is impure and 
bad. Holiness and moral evil are not entities, existing 
apart and of themselves ; they come into existence in asso- 
ciation with being, — the latter in association with creature 
being. Holiness, in its absoluteness, is the moral condi- 
tion of the Deity. He is ^*of purer eyes than to behold 



WHAT IS RELIGION? I45 

iniquity; he cannot look upon evil." By nature, He is 
necessarily holy. The creature, by nature, in his primary 
condition, is holy also ; but not necessarily so. Its natural 
tendency is towards holiness ; its disposition is pure. Self- 
will destroys this primal condition ; it precipitates the an- 
gelic creation, we are led to believe, into the category of 
the evil. From holy beings, they instantly become trans- 
formed into evil ones. Their whole nature has undergone 
a transformation ; they are unclean and evil spirits. Evil 
is now their natural element. When the devil speaketh a 
lie, he speaketh it in accordance with his nature, for he is 
by nature " zl liar, and the father of it." All that is natu- 
rally unclean and malignant pours forth from these evil 
sources. A nature which is completely depraved, thinks, 
feels, and acts evil, naturally. In what relation does such 
a being stand with respect to law ? Evidently, so far as 
law is imperative, and commanding that which is good, he 
is beyond its reach. The only way in which law can be 
applied to the creature in such a situation is as a restraining 
force. The law, as prohibitive, threatens punishment to 
evil acts ; fear of such punishment is the only motive which 
can be applied to an evil nature. By this means, evil can 
be kept under restraint in an absolutely evil being. Tor- 
ment inevitably following upon the evil act, in a sentient, 
intellectual being, must necessarily restrain him ; but it 
would not make him feel and recognize his guilty and de- 
praved nature. To fear the consequences of an action is 
not to be conscious of guilt. Before the act, the soul is 
disturbed by fear of punishment; after the act, without 
something more, the transgressor will only become more 
terrified at the now certain doom. Law, then, to evil 
natures, will, in the first place, by means of threatened 
punishment, restrain evil acts more or less. After the 
act is committed, it will but increase fear, making the 
13 K 



146 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

creature, in the end, reckless, despairing, and perhaps even 
defiant. 

Human nature, though fallen and depraved, is not abso- 
lutely unclean and evil ; there is a duality in it ; the good 
exists alongside of the evil ; there are good feelings and 
bad feelings, good desires and bad desires in human na- 
ture. The good is capable of appreciating the holy, and 
as such is more or less capable of appreciating and abhor- 
ring the evil. Law, in both of its aspects, is applicable to 
human nature : that which is good is appealed to and is 
encouraged by the rewards offered under a holy law ; that 
which is evil is condemned and is held in check by the 
law, in its threatenings of punishment. The law, St. Paul 
tells us, was revealed to man outwardly because of trans- 
gression j that is, to hold sin in its principle in check, — 
to prevent its outburst in sinful actions. Hence it is that 
the moral law, in its first revelations, levels its fulminations 
principally at acts. Let sin, which is evil incarnate, but 
be permitted to burst forth in open acts, and society would 
be disruptured. As it is, society with difficulty manages 
to exist. But let the barriers which have been erected by 
God in man's conscience, and by this moral law which 
enlightens the conscience, be but once entirely removed, 
and this world would at once become a very hell. In fact, 
under such circumstances, human nature would not continue 
to exist. The law, then, by its threatenings of punishment 
to evil acts, through fear restrains sin. But with human 
nature it is capable of doing more: it can bring out in 
man the consciousness of his guilt with respect to the many 
transgressions he has committed, and can thus, moreover, 
make him conscious of his inherent depravity and sinful- 
ness. The mere infraction of a positive statute is not 
enough to make man conscious of his guilt. The law says, 
**Thou shalt not steal;" a man knows this statute, he 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 14/ 

breaks it ; unless this law be the law of his conscience, 
nothing follows but fear. The man knows that he has 
transgressed, that he is now liable to punishment, and he 
suffers fear, he is apprehensive of punishment ; but still he 
may not feel at all guilty, he may even excuse or justify 
himself. If he be thoroughly depraved, he would feel no 
compunction at all ; . and while he would dread the day of 
reckoning, he would hate the being who is to call him to 
account. His knowledge of his crime, so far from hum- 
bling him, would only make him more reckless, and alto- 
gether worse. The more depraved a man is, the less capa- 
ble is he of appreciating his depravity, the less he will care 
about committing crimes ; he may finally glory in them. 
It requires some degree of goodness to feel compunction 
for crime : the worst men are those who feel no compunc- 
tion for the evil they have perpetrated. Because the day 
of reckoning is for the present delayed, because they as yet 
go unpunished for their crimes, their hearts are fully set in 
them to do evil ; they recklessly sin on, and ^' knowing the 
judgments of God, that they which commit such things 
are worthy of death," not only do the same, but have 
*' pleasure in them that do them." It requires some 
amount of goodness to suffer from the evil ; thus, Judas 
was a better man by nature than many who follow after 
him, in that he repented himself in that he had betrayed 
the innocent blood, as he himself confessed. And so deeply 
did he feel his crime, that he went and hanged himself; — a 
much better man, we say, than those who commit crimes al- 
most as deeply dyed, and yet feel no compunction for them. 
Besides being afraid of the consequences of an act, the 
moral law can effect more in the soul. Entering into the 
conscience, it can, instead of an outward letter, become 
an inward living spirit. As such, it produces a living 
effect ; instead of fear, the soul experiences the feeling of 



148 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

guilt, it would feel, under the same circumstances, as 
Judas did, that it has betrayed innocent blood ; and herein 
is the pain that it suffers. It feels the turpitude of its ac- 
tion. The man who has transgressed the law of public 
opinion becomes uneasy ; he is afraid of the consequences 
of his action; he knows that when his crime becomes 
known he will be branded as a villain, — that he will be 
utterly discarded from the society of his fellow-men. The 
man who has transgressed the law of the land becomes 
uneasy ; he knows that, should his sin be made known, he 
would at once be arrested, haled to judgment, and from 
thence probably to the gallows. In the view of these 
frightful consequences which he has entailed upon himself 
by his crime, he is afraid ; every man who looks at him 
becomes a detective ; every leaf that falls to the ground 
makes him startle with fright. Fear is the principle which 
moves the soul under these conditions; it is the conse- 
quences of the act which are dreaded ; all the while the cul- 
prit may be indifferent to the guilt of it. Before the cul- 
pable act, threat of punishment deters ; after, it serves to 
make fear only more intense ; there is a fearful looking-for 
of vengeance and fiery indignation. Now, what the crim- 
inal fears from public opinion, or from the hands of civil 
justice, as a religious being, he must fear, and far more, 
from a holy God. As a man, he dreads the brand of his 
fellow - men ; as a citizen, he dreads disgrace, and pun- 
ishment at the hands of civil justice ; as a religious man, 
a man who has in him a consciousness of the God who is 
holy, and the vindicator of right and wrong, he dreads the 
vengeance of His tribunal. But in all this, still there is no 
consciousness of guilt ; as yet it has not fastened itself upon 
the soul. The man fears, but is not conscious of his guilt. 
To feel guilt, a man must to some extent be holy ; the law 
of God, the moral law, must enter into him, and become a 



WHAT IS RELIGION? I49 

part of his nature ; he must feel, when he has done an evil 
deed, that he has done wrong, — must feel the moral turpitude 
of his act; and this he cannot do unless he has a con- 
science — one into which the moral law has entered as a 
factor. The law condemns in the letter ; the conscience 
is a living form of this law, its condemnation is spirit — a 
living, conscious, sensible act. In it, the soul becomes 
at once conscious, and sensible of its guilt. The man who 
feels his guilt, in the contemplation of his crime, is racked 
not only by fear of consequences, but also by remorse. 
He recognizes and feels the evil of his sin, his soul shud- 
ders with horror in the presence of its sin, is agonized 
with remorse ; and in addition to this, as a religious being 
conscious of a holy God, the avenger of injustice and 
wrong, he fears to meet Him, he recoils with terror from 
the future, fears death, and is terrified at the thought of 
judgment. 

To restate the subject: transgression implies law, con- 
scious transgression implies a knowledge of the law. Since 
law implies' punishment, consciousness of transgression 
implies apprehension of punishment. The transgressor 
being completely depraved and hardened, transgression of 
moral law carries with it nothing more. The transgressor 
not being completely depraved and hardened, but still 
having some conscience, transgression of moral law im- 
plies the consciousness of guilt which carries with it re- 
morse, and the recognition of the evil of sin. Conscious- 
ness of guilt in conjunction with consciousness of God, 
which exists in man as a religious creature, implies fear of 
God, of death, and of a future judgment. Such is the 
connection of psychical facts which holds good of man in 
his relation to moral law. Thus man stands in relation to 
the prohibitive aspect of law, in so far as it forbids evil 
with the threat of punishment.. In so far as the law is 
13* 



150 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

positively imperative, demanding good dispositions, the 
feeling that arises upon a failure to meet these demands is 
not that of guilt, but rather of helplessness. The soul 
recognizes the fact that it has not what the law requires, 
recognizes its deficiency, perhaps perceives in itself the 
very opposite disposition to that which the law requires ; it 
is humbled by the disclosure, and recognizes its helpless- 
ness. The law under this aspect serves to make the soul 
conscious of its sinfulness, but not of guilt. Guilt pertains 
to acts, it springs from transgression, sometimes from acts 
of omission, but generally from acts of commission. It 
arises in the soul when in the contemplation of such acts ; 
it is of greater or less intensity according as the act was 
more or less wilful and inexcusable. Sinfulness is a state, 
a psychical and pneumatic condition, it is the condition 
of the human being so far as he is evil. Sin is evil incar- 
nate. The condition of sinfulness began in and with the 
guilty act ; by one man, by his one act of disobedience, *' sin 
entered into the world, and death by sin; " again, ''by one 
man's disobedience many were made sinners." Sin as a 
first act of transgression is inexplicable ; it is an act of self- 
will, and therefore inexplicable ; it is a mystery, that is, 
has no explanation ; every wilful act of sin is inexplicable, 
it is unreasonable ; the very soul that sins will admit this, 
it will accuse itself of folly, will find it impossible to under- 
stand how it ever could have perpetrated such an act of 
folly. Actual sin is folly, therefore it can offer no expla- 
nation for its existence. Sinfulness began in such an act 
of folly ; it continues to propagate itself, and is ever re- 
peating itself in like acts. If acts of sin could be accounted 
for, guilt would be more easy to bear ; it is just because 
a man sells his soul for nought, that guilt is so oppressive 
in its weight. ''What shall it profit a man if he gain the 
whole world and lose his own soul ? " is only a reasonable 



WHAT IS RELIGION? I5I 

question. But it is the folly of sin that in it the soul sells 
itself verily for nought ; herein especially lies the misery 
of guilt. Every act of sin is an inexplicable fact ; out of 
it guilt arises, which in its turn indicates or points to a pre- 
viously sinful condition. Sin as an act had in its origin no 
such previous connection. It was an absolutely self-willed 
act of folly. Now however, inasmuch as sinfulness or 
human depravity exists, the sinful act has a root. The 
act springs out of a precedent condition. The corrupt 
tree bears fruit, which however is worse than the condition 
of the tree would warrant ; as an effect it is only partially ac- 
counted for, to a certain extent is without a cause, or, more 
strictly speaking, without an adequate cause ; it is therefore 
to a certain extent inexplicable. The will, or self-will 
alone, can be offered to account for it ; in so far however 
as it is connected with the previous condition, so far it is an 
index of it. The sinful act pointed to a sinful state, and it 
is this fact that the feeling of guilt brings especially before 
the consciousness. Consciousness of guilt and of sinfulness 
or depravity are thus intimately, even essentially connected. 
Man cannot be conscious of his guilt without at the same 
time becoming conscious that he is a sinner. Sinfulness 
as a state and sin as an act are so intimately related that 
they cannot possibly be considered as separate. They are 
as essentially connected as the tree is with the fruit, yet, as 
we have said, the fruit is worse than might have been ex- 
pected ; there is more in the cause than an antecedent state 
of corruption; self-will, an unaccountable, inexplicable 
factor, must be introduced. These two things taken make 
up the antecedent and the cause of the act of sin ; guilt as 
a fact of consciousness is a witness to both, and makes 
them to appear as facts of consciousness. 

The two factors to the one product of the sinful act are, 
as we have seen, self-will — wilfulness we may with propriety 



152 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

term it where the will acts without any apparent reasonable 
grounds — and sinfulness. Again, the two factors to the 
common product of sinfulness are this same wilfulness and 
desire. Desire seems to stand at the beginning of the sinful 
development in the present condition of human nature. 
Desire gives opportunity for or makes the possibility of 
actual sin, sinfulness creates it. Desire, no matter how 
inordinate, can never account for the fact, it is not an 
adequate cause ; wilfulness utters the fiat, and makes sin a 
fact. Desire implies love, such a form of it as is contained 
under the category of liking ; we love that which we like, 
and vice versa; we love that which we desire, and desire 
that which we love. Desire implies more than liking, it 
implies a felt pressing need. It is a conscious want press- 
ing for gratification. To desire excessively is to love and to 
want excessively ; when directed, then, to things below, it 
becomes inordinate desire. Love directed to the creature 
rather than the Creator is idolatry. Covetousness, an in- 
ordinate desire or affection, says St. Paul, is idolatry ; so 
with all other desires or affections when inordinate and di- 
rected to the creatures or created things. Desire directed 
towards the creature, when excessive, falls then into the 
category of the inordinate ; other desires in their very be- 
ginnings are evil. Each individual character has its own 
peculiar tendency to some particular form of sin. Disposi- 
tions vary ; in one character ambition is the leading charac- 
teristic, in another spiritual pride, in another worldliness, 
in another sensuality, in another avarice. The meaning 
of this is, that each one of these characters has some par- 
ticular creature object on which its affections are set. A 
disposition is a state or habit of desire. It will be found 
that the disposition indicates the leading desires in each 
character, and therefore what the man loves and wants most. 
Thus, the avaricious man loves gain above all things ; the 



WHAT IS RELIGION? I53 

sensualist, the indulgence of his appetites and passions ; the 
worldling, the life of pleasure ; the ambitious man, power or 
popularity; and the spiritually proud, the sense of his inde- 
pendence. These are the loves of these various forms of 
character ; their affections centre upon these things, their 
desires constantly go out after them. A disposition is, we 
say, a chronic state of desire; each individual, from the 
very beginning, has his own peculiar set of desires ; it is 
the gradual growth resulting from the indulgence of such 
desires that finally results in a disposition, and designates 
the character as belonging to one or the other of those forms 
of sinfulness. Desire, by itself, does not in all cases create 
sinfulness ; it requires the additional factor of wilfulness. 
Desire prepares the way, the soul wants something, an oppor- 
tunity of meeting this want presents itself; the law inter- 
fers, and says. Thou shalt not ; self-will comes in, and the 
act is committed. The desire is unlawfully indulged, guilt 
is incurred, and desire now becomes a sinful habit; the 
more it is indulged, the stronger the habit, the more 
chronic it becomes ; now it is a lust, inordinate and lawless 
in its nature. Desires which did not in the first place exist 
in the soul are sometimes brought into being by sinful acts. 
Intemperance, which in its finality is a chronic desire, is 
thus by indulgence often engendered ; no such desire ex- 
ists in the soul ; no sense of want is felt ; the unlawful act 
is committed ; the man intoxicates himself; thenceforth he 
feels a desire for intoxicating drinks ; he has planted a lust 
within his soul with which thenceforth he must ever wage 
war if he would save himself. Other desires exist in the 
soul originally ; gratified legitimately, they produce no 
evil ; but pampered and cherished, they grow in intensity, 
and become inordinate and wanton ; they fix themselves in 
the mind, presenting themselves before the consciousness in 
the vilest manner through the imagination ; thus they be- 



-154 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

come lusts which ''war against the soul," and the soul is 
converted into an evil, or a foul and loathsome object; 
thus God sees it, and thus the consciousness perceives it, 
when once it is awakened to it, through its guilt. 

For all such self-formed habits man must feel that he 
himself is responsible, and whenever they come before his 
consciousness, must feel awakened to a consciousness of his 
guilt. The guilty act points to the self-formed habit, and 
this again points to a series of acts whereby that habit was" 
formed. No condition is thus without some amount of 
guilt, for all are what they are through guilty acts of self- 
indulgence. The power which a man feels within* himself, 
working through desire, he knows to a great extent has 
been wilfully engendered. Thus it is that man in view of 
his sinfulness feels guilty. It is not that the state or habit 
is guilty, but that he who has it is guilty in having wilfully 
engendered it ; wilfully he has pampered his appetites until 
they have become inordinate habits ; he has cherished ill 
feelings until they have engendered hatred, and envy, and 
jealousy, and malice, and such like affections. These have 
become habitual states of the soul. In childhood, such states 
(if at all) are scarcely perceptible ; in manhood, they exhibit 
themselves decidedly; in old age they become matured. 
Out of such states issue all the evil desires, such as revenge, 
and all those wicked, malicious desires that seek the misery 
and destruction of all those who oppose themselves to self. 
Every man is responsible for and guilty of what he is ; for 
he is not what he was, and he has wilfully made himself 
what he is. What he is, becomes manifest to himself for 
the first time, often after some desperately guilty act. Thus 
his eyes are opened, and he becomes conscious that he is a 
miserably sinful and guilty creature. The act points to the 
condition of the soul from whence it issued, and that to a 
series of guilty acts ; guilt increasing, becomes deeper in 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 155 

each succeeding act. No guilty act stands isolated ; it is a 
link in the chain which stretches far back to the first guilty- 
act of the first man, Adam. By the one act of disobedi- 
ence of one man, many were made sinners. All the links 
that we have added to this chain we are and feel respon- 
sible for. We feel, then, guilty of our sinfulness, because 
we are guilty of the acts whereby it was brought about. 
Sinfulness and guilt cannot therefore be considered as sep- 
arable. The point at which guilt comes in is, when man 
wilfully yields to the solicitations of desire. And herein 
lies the inexplicable nature, the mystery of sin. In its final 
analysis, it resolves itself into folly. 

The predominant feeling, when the soul is awakened to 
a consciousness of its internal condition, is that of guilt. 
Roused by the rude shock of some glaringly guilty act, all 
at once the soul becomes conscious of its condition ; casting 
its glance backward, it is appalled at the vision that presents 
itself. Stretching backward, connecting it with a state of 
almost innocence, it sees a long chain, each link of it con- 
sisting of some flagrantly guilty act. Larger and larger, 
heavier and heavier become the links as the chain grows 
longer, until at last the soul, staggering under the load, 
awakens to find itself almost crushed under the weight of its 
guilt. It is not the power of sin, its deadly, constantly in- 
creasing gravity that the soul first regards ; that comes after- 
wards, when the soul begins to make the effort to resist it, — 
guilt is the first aspect under which sin presents itself before 
the consciousness when the soul is aroused. There are vari- 
ous ways by which this is brought about; one of them we 
have mentioned. A glaring act of guilt will often be the 
means of arousing the soul to moral self-consciousness ; in 
a religious soul (where the consciousness of God as the Holy 
One and the Judge of all the earth is present) it will evolve 
all the other facts connected with that of guilt. Thus, the 



156 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

soul will become terrified at the thought of God ; "when it 
considers Him it will be afraid. ' ' Death, too, will be an 
object of dread, and the soul will in consequence, "all its 
lifetime, through fear of death, be subject to bondage." 
"The sting of death is sin;" guilt more or less felt is 
what makes man afraid to meet death. As a fact in the 
soul, guilt is never absent. There have been men, perhaps, 
and there still may be, who are absolutely indifferent to 
death, who think no more of it than do the beasts which 
perish ; but if there are any such, they are scarcely human ; 
they have not what the human race as a general rule has. 
Such men, if there be any, have not guilt in them. Fear 
of death proves guilt, not that it is invariably before the 
consciousness; man is often ignorant of what it is that 
makes him afraid. Guilt is not always before the con- 
sciousness ; it may be repressed through pride ; it may make 
itself felt only as a ground-swell within the soul ; there is 
no movement ; all may be quiet ; apparently the storm 
seems far off. Fear of death proves guilt ; thus, oftentimes, 
imminence of death will bring this connection out; so 
that this is another way by which man may be awakened 
to guilt. Brought into immediate contact with death, the 
soul for the first time awakes and becomes alive ; now for 
the first time it looks the truth fairly in the face, and 
in it reads its doom. Guilt flashes its lurid light upon it, 
and reveals to it the blackness of its guilt ; deed after deed 
arises and presents itself before the consciousness for judg- 
ment, and receives its sentence ; wildly and convulsively 
the soul clings to life, and grapples with death; death has 
brought guilt to light, and guilt the fear of death. Thus, 
the presence of death is another way of bringing guilt, with 
all its attendent facts, before the consciousness. In the 
soul where there is no consciousness of God, that is, where 
the fact is so suppressed as not to appear before the con- 



WHAT IS RELIGION? I57 

sciousness, where, consequently, there is no consciousness 
of immortality, no belief in a future judgment, — in such a 
case, guilt, when it becomes a conscious fact, must exist 
only as remorse. And under such circumstances, no doubt 
suicide will follow. Thus Judas repented, in that he had 
betrayed innocent blood, threw down the pieces of silver 
for which he had bartered his soul, and went and hanged 
himself. Alas, poor guilty man ! remorse had fixed its 
fangs within upon his soul ; faith, hope, everything had 
disappeared, nought but the black deed, and that stands out ; 
hopeless, reckless, unbelieving, he rushes upon his doom; 
dangling from a limb, burst asunder in the white moon- 
light, ghastly spectacle — he hangs a sign, the victim of 
remorse. 

A general summary of the subject gives us the following 
result: — guilt implies knowledge of the law; the moral 
law as we find it in revelation, or in the enlightened con- 
science, forbids both the inward and outward acts of sin ; 
it prohibits the cherishing of a certain class of feelings and 
desires ; it pronounces all such conscious voluntary acts as 
sinful, and threatens punishment ; the soul being in posses- 
sion of such knowledge, when conscious of the inward for- 
bidden act, becomes at once conscious of guilt, and so 
again a forbidden outward act being committed, the soul 
becomes conscious of its guilt ; the guilt of the outward act 
is felt to be deeper than that of the inward ; because it is 
more wilful, it is more inexcusable, and just as it was more 
or less wilful, will the soul feel more or less guilty. Guilt 
points to the condition of the sinning soul, and that lays 
open a whole chain of sinful acts, so that, overwhelmed at 
the sight, and staggering under the weight of its load, the 
soul cries out in anguish, *' What must I do to be saved ? " 
^' Oh wretched man that I am ; who shall deliver me from 
the body of this death ? ' ' 
14 



158 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

How it is that this self-revelation takes place at one time 
rather than at another, and in one person and not in an- 
other, lies simply in this, that at such a time man is true to 
himself, and honestly reads off the record of his conscious- 
ness. At other times he wilfully shuts his eyes and will 
not look at the truth ; he suppresses within himself the facts 
of his consciousness, and offers himself up a willing servant 
to sin. He manages to suppress, perhaps for the time to ex- 
tinguish, two elements of the human consciousness, namely, 
God, and the moral self-consciousness. Such is man's part 
in this matter. On the other hand, in order to bring out 
these facts in the consciousness, Divine inspiration inter- 
venes. Like letters which, when written with invisible 
ink, are made evident by being held before the fire, so the 
spirit breathing upon the soul brings out in living characters 
the facts of man's consciousness. Truly, '' by the law is the 
knowledge of sin ; " but what makes this knowledge vital, 
what makes sin and guilt conscious facts, is that the soul 
is breathed upon by the Spirit, and man, dead in tres- 
passes and sins, becomes at once a living soul ; conscious- 
ness is life, without it the soul is dead. With this conscious- 
ness a new form of life is introduced, which, gradually 
expanding and being fed by the gospel of Christ, will 
finally penetrate the whole soul, infuse into every portion 
of it light, and be consummated only when it has pene- 
trated and glorified the body. All those deep, yet inarticu- 
late movements which are found under ^he Religious life, 
belong to this source. They were the motions of the 
Spirit, striving to bring out before the consciousness the 
fact of sin and guilt. That ground-swell which sluggishly 
surged under the Religious life was but the movement of 
the Divine Spirit within ; as a force, its tendency was towards 
consciousness, but it was repressed and chained down under 
the formalism and cold morality of the Religious life. But 



WHAT IS RELIGION? I59 

here the Spirit will no longer be held in check ; He has 
burst loose, the Religious life proved insufficient. Man is 
forced to recognize his sin and guilt ; they are facts before 
him, and as such must be met and satisfied ; the conscious 
life has begun, the Spirit has quickened the soul, and 
already it is in travail ; nor will this be ended until the new 
creature is formed within, until Christ dwells in the heart by 
faith. The Divine life is now, then, in process of genera- 
tion, the new creature is being formed. 

" In the beginning God created the heavens and the 
earth, and the earth was without form and void, and dark- 
ness was upon the face of the deep. ' ' And just as it was in 
the physical, so it is in the spiritual creation — all the old 
conditions of human nature being broken up, the soul be- 
• ing dissolved in the waters of repentance; out of this spir- 
itual chaos a cosmos will arise; — ''and the spirit of God 
moved upon the face of the waters. ' ' The same is true of 
the spiritual. *' Except a man be born of water and of the 
Holy Ghost, he cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven." 
The condition of water is the state of penitence ; the other 
necessary condition in order to the creation is the Holy 
Ghost. These were elements under the physical creation 
which it was the work of the Spirit to bring out of chaotic 
into cosmical order. There are elements under the spiritual 
creation which in the primary state of penitence may be 
considered as in chaotic arrangement. The work of the 
Spirit is to reduce them into a spiritual cosmos; and this 
brings us to the consideration of the spiritual creation and 
development of the kingdom of God among men. 

The kingdom of God is a spiritual creation; it exists 
in the world, but is not of the world ; it is made up of 
men, not, however, in their natural and carnal condition, 
but in a supernatural spiritual condition, — men who have 
been regenerated by the Spirit of God. The fundamental 



l60 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

and primary spiritual condition, in order to the entering 
into and becoming a member of this kingdom, is that which 
we have been describing. It may technically be called the 
state of penitence ; those who are in this condition are 
poor in spirit ; they are, as we have seen, awakened to a 
consciousness of their guilt and sin, and being so, they are 
of a broken and contrite heart, humble-minded, heavy- 
laden_, longing for deliverance from their guilt and sin. 
Such alone are the conditions under which the powers of the 
other world, as emanating from Christ, can and do actually 
operate ; and in due time such characters are upon the 
exercise of faith introduced within the kingdom of Christ, 
they are relieved from the load of their sin and guilt, 
redeemed from the bondage of sinfulness, and finally their 
bodies being glorified, enter upon the life of glory, which 
as yet is future in the history of the kingdom. This king- 
dom has a real historical development ; it has always ex- 
isted in the world. To give us an account of this develop- 
ment is the prime object of revelation. The members 
which constitute this kingdom have always been of the 
same character ; they were those who were awakened to the 
consoiousness of their miserably sinful condition, those who 
mourned for sin, men of broken and contrite hearts. 
Such souls eagerly clutched at the promise of a spiritual 
deliverance held out to man from the very first, and with 
anxiety they looked forward to the time when the Re- 
deemer should come, who would deliver them from this 
bondage, and restore them to a better and happier life. 
Such were Abel, Enoch, Abraham, and all the patriarchs. 
Such was the Arabian patriarch Job, who, though sepa- 
rated far from the chosen people, could yet say, *'I know 
that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the 
latter day upon the earth ; and though after my skin worms 
destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. ' ' Such, 



WHAT IS RELIGION? l6l 

too, was David, the man after God's own heart, who suf- 
fered more under the consciousness of sin and guilt than, 
perhaps, any man ever has or ever will do ; he too, in the 
anguish of his soul, looked confidently forth to the coming 
of his Redeemer. And just such was the whole host of 
worthies who followed him in historical succession ; all 
were men of " broken and contrite heart; " "all died in 
faith, not having received the promises, but having seen 
them afar off, and were persuaded of them, embraced them 
and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on 
earth." 

According to the historic development of the kingdom, 
in those preceding the coming of the Redeemer, the good 
things provided in the kingdom were not yet realized. 
Sacrifice, as we have seen, is in its nature a promise, and 
is symbolic of what God intended to do, so far as con- 
cerned the taking away of guilt. " It is not possible that the 
blood of bulls and goats can take away sins. ' ' The con- 
science could not by these be purged of guilt; they pointed 
to the day when this would be done, and so encouraged 
and strengthened hope ; but the saints of old must con- 
tinue to labor under a sense of guilt, though they might 
know that God would not impute it to them, through the 
promise ; still they must feel, more or less, its tormenting 
influence, and struggle under the burden of it, waiting 
patiently for the fulfilment of the promises. The position 
which such saints occupied with respect to the kingdom of 
Christ was this : as being poor in spirit they were adapted 
for an entrance into the kingdom ; they were fit subjects 
for the powers of that kingdom to operate upon and with- 
in. Had there been nothing more, though adapted for 
the kingdom by their spiritual condition, they could not, 
properly and strictly speaking, be said to be members of 
that kingdom. One other important element is neces- 
14* L 



l62 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

sary in order to create membership — that element is faith. 
The soul in a contrite condition awakened to consciousness 
of sinfulness and guilt, is not yet, strictly speaking, in the 
kingdom. "Blessed," says Christ, '^are the poor inspirit, 
for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven." Such is the funda- 
mental character of all those who belong to that kingdom ; 
such is the condition to which all must be reduced before 
they can make an entrance into it ; such still may be the 
condition of the soul, and yet the actual entrance not yet 
effected. 

To all who stood at different epochs in the long line of 
the historic development of the kingdom, there was an 
object of faith presented, that object was God's promise 
of sending a Redeemer who was to deliver man from all 
the evil that sin had entailed upon him ; this promise was 
ratified and confirmed in the institution of sacrifice ; which 
at the same time symbolically represented the way in which 
that promise was to be fulfilled ; it having an especial rela- 
tion to that most prominent point in redemption, the guilt 
of sin. It was to this promise and to this representative in- 
stitution that the faith of the ancient Church attached itself. 
The life of the Church then, throughout those long ages, was 
one entirely of hope. During the gradual historic develop- 
ment of the kingdom, the meaning contained in this cen- 
tral promise and institution was gradually evolved ; it grad- 
ually became clearer how God proposed to effect Redemp- 
tion, and the experience of the believer in the presence 
of such increasing light must have become more satis- 
factory ; and as the time grew shorter and the light grew 
clearer, anticipation must have become more and more 
eager. The deliverance, observe, which was held out to 
be expected, was not, as the Jewish Church, drawn down 
by carnality, conceived, to be a deliverance from temporal 
enemies, and an exalted political status. The kingdom 



WHAT IS RELIGION? I63 

from the very beginning was a spiritual one. Only the 
spiritual man could understand it, or would care for its ex- 
hibition. The poor in spirit, mourning for sin, tormented 
more or less by the fear created by guilt, hungering and 
thirsting after righteousness, they could understand the 
meaning of spiritual promises, and would eagerly await the 
coming of a Redeemer who was to deliver them from these 
harassing conditions and from the burden of sin and guilt 
under which they groaned and were in bondage. Thus 
Zacharias understood the promises, and in the presence of 
the fulfilment of them could exclaim, *' Blessed be the 
Lord God of Israel, for he hath visited and redeemed his 
people, and hath raised up an Horn of salvation for us in 
the house of his servant David ; " his idea of the fulfilment 
of the promise in relation to present salvation lay in this, 
that, being delivered out of the hand of his enemies (that 
is spiritual), he might serve God without fear, in holiness 
and righteousness all the days of his life. The Redeemer 
was to give knowledge of salvation unto his people, he 
says, by the remission of their sins. 

The fundamental characteristic of the member of the 
kingdom after the coming of Christ was exactly the same 
as that of the saint before His coming; he was '' poor in 
spirit." The soul laboring under a sense of its guilt is sub- 
ject to two leading influences : first, it is humbled ; next, 
it is harassed by a distressing sense of fear ; it is uneasy 
about its relation to God, fluctuating between the fear of 
His wrath and the hope of His love. It is the first of 
these elements that the term "poor in spirit" expressly 
designates. It is to the second of these elements, however, 
that the promises of Redemption especially relate. Har- 
assed more or less by such feelings, the saint under the 
Old Testament could well understand the meaning of the 
spiritual promises, and could only eagerly and anxiously 



164 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

await their fulfilment in his own case. Struggling under 
the bondage of sin, he is wearied and heavy-laden, and 
above all things he is anxious for reconciliation and a 
sense of peace with God, for the burden of his sins is in- 
tolerable. As a member of the kingdom under its present 
historical state of development, all these wants can be sup- 
plied. The development of the kingdom has reached its 
turning-point, both objectively in history, and subjectively; 
it can, in the soul of the believer, create an entirely new 
form of experience ; all that is necessary in order to do this 
is the exercise of a proper faith. The Redeemer has come, 
has by the sacrifice of Himself in relation to God made an 
end of guilt, has ascended up on high, and received gifts 
for men, has been put in possession of the supreme moral 
power, the Holy Spirit, by whose agency, by the additional 
medium of His Word and example, he is ready and able 
to deliver the believer from the bondage of his sin. All 
that is necessary in order to make these objective facts sub- 
jective, and a real experience in the soul of the "poor in 
spirit, ' ' is, that he should exercise an adequate faith ; he 
must appropriate the objective to himself; make the fact of 
Christ's atonement the satisfaction for his own. guilt ; make 
the power of Christ, by confidently relying on it, his own 
in the struggle with sin. Let him but claim Christ's act of 
atonement for himself, and at once it will give him peace 
of conscience and peace with God. Speaking the language 
of such a faith, he can say boldly and joyfulty, *^ Christ 
hath redeemed me from the curse of the law, being made 
a curse for me; " confidently relying upon the strength of 
his Redeemer, he can say, ''I can do all things through 
Christ who strengtheneth me." "The life which I now 
live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who 
loved me, and gave Himself forme." Thus, the Redemp- 
tion which the New Testament saint experiences by faith is 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 16$ 

not one exclusively of hope; it is a present one : '* being 
justified by faith, we have peace with God through our 
Lord Jesus Christ ; " a present conscious possession. *' By 
whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein 
we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God ; and 
not only so, but we rejoice in tribulation also ; knowing 
that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, 
and experience hope ; and hope maketh not ashamed, be- 
cause the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the 
Holy Ghost, which is given unto us." Thus the experi- 
ence of a Christian believer, necessarily, from the historic 
nature of the development of the kingdom of God, is in 
advance of that of the Old Testament saints. David and 
.St. Paul represented different epochs in this development. 
The element in which they were agreed was poverty of 
spirit ; both were broken-hearted, contrite sinners, deeply 
conscious of their sinfulness and guilt. David looked joy- 
fully forward to a time of deliverance, and rejoiced in hope 
of the salvation which the Redeemer was to bring to light ; 
his consciousness of peace with God must necessarily, from 
want of light, be fluctuating ; he lived rather in hope of it. 
St. Paul rejoiced not in this hope, for with him it was frui- 
tion ; but he too rejoiced in hope of the glory of God, the 
Glory which was to be revealed at the second coming, not 
the first; *^he looked forward to the resurrection of the 
dead, and the life in the world to come," and even pre- 
vious to that event, in the strength of a faith in a present 
salvation, he was "willing rather to be absent from the 
body, and to be present with the Lord." 

The consciousness of guilt is, as we have said, followed 
by two effects. The man who has been awakened to a 
consciousness of his guilt and sinfulness is humbled ; here 
we are at the disintegration and dissolution of egotism ; no 
longer can the soul in this condition buoy itself up with a 



l66 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

belief in its own goodness. No ! the truth is now revealed, 
and the soul is, per force, 'brought face to face with it. It 
sees itself under the light of a perfect law, and as it appears 
to a Holy God. Its own blackness and foulness stand 
clearly out ; up to this time the man has succeeded in 
deceiving himself. All the while he has been imagining, 
perhaps really believing that he was without reproach, or 
perhaps he may have acknowledged to himself, and to 
others even, that he had infirmities and weaknesses ; but 
he has never fairly looked the subject in the face ; he has 
carefully repressed the truth in unrighteousness; has 
never honestly judged himself by the perfect law ; he has 
never been true to himself. Christ tells us that *'men 
love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are 
evil ; that every one that doeth evil hateth light, neither 
cometh to it, lest his deeds should be reproved." On the 
other hand, ^'everyone that doeth truth cometh to the 
light, that his deeds may be manifest that they are wrought 
in God." It all depends on a man's honesty. The man 
who is really and honestly anxious to know the truth, to 
know exactly what is his condition, whether or not he is in 
the right path, such a man with unprejudiced mind comes 
anxiously to the light that he may compare his character 
and conduct with it, and see whether he is in the right, 
whether he is in God. Honesty of purpose makes differ- 
ence of character in this respect. The true man is willing 
and anxious to be reproved if he is in the wrong, his only 
anxiety is to be in the right course. The man who loves 
the wrong and its deeds, loves darkness ; necessarily he is 
dishonest and untrue to himself; he avoids the light lest his 
deeds should be reproved. The penitent is necessarily an 
honest, true man ; now at last he is in the truth, and the 
truth will finally make him free. Comparing himself with 
the true life, in his penitence he enters upon it. There is 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 167 

a disclosure ; he sees it, recognizes it to himself and is 
humbled by it ; becoming conscious of his guilt and sin, 
he becomes a broken-hearted, contrite sinner ; egotism is 
entirely broken up ; no longer does he pride himself upon 
his righteousness ; but, smiting upon his breast, like the 
poor publican, he cries out in his anguish, ^' God be mer- 
ciful to me a sinner;" self-sufficiency has gone down, peni- 
tential humility has taken its place ; self-complacency has 
disappeared, inward sorrow and mourning, total dissatis- 
faction are in its stead. The other effect following upon 
consciousness of guilt is inward wretchedness, and this 
wretchedness has as its chief factor, fear. The guilty soul 
becomes sorely distressed as to its state with respect to God, 
guilt creates fear and distrust, the soul feels that justly it 
deserves God's wrath and indignation, and this creates 
great uneasiness ; above all things the soul longs- for God's 
forgiveness of its sins, and for a sense of peace with Him ; 
there will never be any rest until, being justified, the soul 
attains to a peace with God. Consciousness of guilt, in 
conjunction with that of God as the Holy One, necessarily 
engenders fear ; it makes the soul dread Him whom above 
all things it would love, and would like to feel assured was 
its Father, rather than its enemy ; hence the uneasiness, the 
wretchedness under which the awakened man labors j he 
wants peace with God, wants to be assured that God has 
taken away his sins and received him into his favor. The 
first of these effects, under the dispensation of the king- 
dom, is permanent ; the second is removed. 

The act which, on God's part, relates to guilt is desig- 
nated by several names : it is termed forgiveness or remis- 
sion of sin, pardon, justification ; all which terms relate to 
the same act, the act by which God puts aside or covers 
man's guilt, and receives him into his favor. It is in its 
nature an active transitive act, passing over from God to 



l68 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

man. God forgives sin, man as the subject of the forgive- 
ness becomes conscious of the act. It is an act not only 
of and in God, but also in man ; previous to it the soul is 
perplexed and harassed under the consciousness of guilt, 
it fears God's wrath, and can attain no peace. But upon 
the taking place of this act all is changed, forgiveness of 
sins at once quiets the conscience ; not that man ceases to 
feel and be humbled under the sense of his guilt, this will 
ever continue ; but he is relieved from all further appre- 
hension as to God's wrath ; he is no longer afraid of death 
and the hereafter ; he sees his guilt has been atoned for on 
the Cross, and in view of this he can feel confident of the 
love of God, and can ever rejoice in the hope of the glory 
of God. 

The curse which the law levels against sin has in the ex- 
perience of the awakened sinner become an actual fact. In 
his consciousness of guilt he is actually experiencing the 
curse of the law, it has already taken hold of him. He is 
judged and self-condemned, now, in mercy, that he may 
be delivered from the final judgment of the last day. He 
is judged by God in this life, and so the curse has fastened 
itself upon him. Now, remission of sins delivers a man 
from this condition; so that he who has been forgiven, can 
truthfully say, with the Apostle, ' ' Christ hath delivered 
me from the curse of the law. ' ' With such an one this is 
not a doctrine, it is an experimental fact ; he speaks from 
the depths of his own personal experience ; he has felt the 
wretchedness entailed by the curse, and has actually through 
faith been delivered from it ; he speaks then from expe- 
rience when he declares Christ's power. St. Paul tells us 
the Gospel is the power of God unto every one that be- 
lieveth, because every such an one experiences that power, 
and feels that it has done for him what nothing else in the 
world could do. It has restored him to peace, satisfied all 



WHAT IS RELIGION? I69 

the demands of his guilt, given him the assurance of God's 
love to him, and enabled him sincerely, ''in the spirit of 
adoption, to cry out Abba, Father." The Apostles, in ex- 
tolling the excellency of the Gospel of Christ, speak from 
experience. It has really been a power in them, and they 
speak as men who appreciated this. It is not a mere doc- 
trine which is to be looked at from the outside, and intel- 
lectually grasped ; but one that is to be personally applied 
to each awakened believer, so that from his own personal 
experience he shall be able to say, " Christ has delivered 
me ; God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of 
Christ." He ought to be able to say to every man, from 
the depths of his own experience, ''I am not ashamed of 
the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salva- 
tion, unto every one that believeth." I say so because I 
have tried it myself; I speak from experience; I know its 
efficacy, and from the bottom of my heart would com- 
mend it to all the weary and heavy-laden. 

As to the manner in which this power is administered in 
the kingdom, there have ever been differences of opinion in 
the Church. Some have held, and still hold, that remis- 
sion of sins is administered in baptism; that where there 
is baptism, there is remission of sin. Others have at- 
tached it to the Holy Communion, and others again to 
certain ordinances of the Church, the officers of the Church 
being regarded as the organs of its administration. Thus 
in the rite of priestly absolution, remission of sin is conjec- 
tured to be administered. There is, too, a conditional ab- 
solution involved in the rite of penance. Under all these 
schemes it is held that there is such a thing as forgiveness of 
sins. Each one of these views attaches to itself the power of 
the administration of this gift. The Roman Church, relying 
upon the ground that what, by its officers, it binds on 
earth is bound in heaven, and that what it looses on earth 
IS 



170 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

is loosed in heaven, grounding its administrative claims upon 
this passage of Scripture, proceeds to exercise it. Thus her 
priests in the rite of absolution, as the agents of God, for- 
give sin, and in the rite of excommunication bind sin upon 
the soul. The Roman Church in its wisdom has firmly- 
grasped this grand truth, which the Protestants have too 
generally lost, namely, that forgiveness of sins is a reality 
of consciousness. Objectively, it is a doctrine ; but admin- 
istered, it is a human reality. It is an event which takes 
place, or ought to take place, in a man's consciousness. 
Forgiveness of sins is confessedly, of all, an element in the 
kingdom. The Roman Church administers it; the Pro- 
testant Church does not. The penitent comes to the 
priest, confesses his sin; knows that there is forgiveness 
with God administered in the kingdom of Christ ; he firmly 
believes that his priest is authorized to administer it ; the 
priest grants him absolution, and the penitent goes away 
satisfied, relieved in mind, consciously absolved. Per- 
haps, precedent to absolution, some act of penance is re- 
quired ; the act is performed, and the penitent, as before, 
feels himself absolved. A firm belief in the power of any 
Church to administer absolution through its ordinances, or 
by its officers, makes a man practically a Romanist, and 
unless, as in the case of Luther, the sense of guilt prove 
too deep to be thus relieved, or faith in the Church be too 
weak, when absolution is administered, the man will feel 
perfectly satisfied as to his relation with God. This is the 
case with many, as we have seen, under the religious form 
of life, their true spiritual status is determined by what they 
rely upon as conferring the pardon. To look to and rely 
upoij Christ and His work, is one thing ; to look to and rely 
upon man is another : the same principle is at work here as 
in the case of idolatry. In the one case, an image, first 
a symbol, next becomes the reality, and so the prime ob- 



WHAT IS RELIGION? I/I 

ject of man's worship. In the other case, the priest first, 
simply an administrator under a power, soon becomes the 
actual dispenser of the gift. It is a critical situation, man 
has assumed the place of God. If the man alone is re- 
garded by the penitent, the soul is deceived ; but if Christ 
is principally relied upon, and man is looked upon merely 
as his officer, though the situation is precarious, still it is 
not hopeless. The great truth, however, which the Roman 
Church has laid hold upon, is that forgiveness is actually 
administered to the consciousness in the Church. Its mem- 
bers can, therefore, through absolution obtain peace with 
God ; they can know and feel that their sins are forgiven. 
This is a point for which human nature, when once awak- 
ened, will perseveringly struggle, and any Church which 
can supply this want, must inevitably wield a gigantic 
power in this world. 

That Christ has the power to forgive sins, and to make 
it a fact in the consciousness, he demonstrates in his cure 
of the man sick of the palsy. ^' Whether is easier to say, 
Thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say, Arise and walk," He 
demands of those who question his power. But that ye 
may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to for- 
give sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) ^' Arise, 
take up thy bed and go into thine house, and he arose and 
departed to his house." The forgiveness of sins being an 
internal as well as an external operation, Christ, to de- 
monstrate to those around him that, although unseen, the 
effect was real, by his fiat produces an outward visible effect,, 
which stands out as a sign of the unseen, inward ; and in 
this, as in all Christ's miracles, there is a real connection 
between the sign and the thing signified ; the body becomes 
whole, visibly, the soul consciously, none knowing the in- 
ternal miracle but the man himself. And this same mira- 
cle is repeated in the consciousness of every one that 
Relieves. 



1/2 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

The Roman Church administers Christ's prerogative of 
forgiveness through her officers. This is an error, and a 
disastrous one, for it glorifies the church, while it obscures 
and shuts out the head. Christ alone can forgive sins. 
While on earth he administered that prerogative by his 
Word, he says to the sick of the palsy, '' Son, thy sins be 
forgiven thee, ' ' and immediately this believer was relieved 
of the bondage of his guilt, and consciously was at peace 
with God j at once he loved his Saviour, and became his 
faithful disciple. Forgiveness of sins is not now, however, 
administered in this way ; it cannot be, for Christ is not 
present with us, but is gone ''to prepare a place for us." 
The administration of this power is, however, still exercised 
by Christ himself; the agent which he uses is the Holy 
Spirit ; the means which the Holy Spirit uses is the writ- 
ten word, the gospel. According to the promise of Christ, 
the Spirit takes the things of him and showeth them unto 
us. In opposition to the Roman doctrine, Christ is the 
only priest. He alone has the power of administering the 
forgiveness of sins. In agreement with the Roman doc- 
trines, forgiveness of sins is an actual conscious fact in 
man's experience. The Holy Spirit effects this result, and 
He uses the gospel of Christ. To the soul laboring under the 
consciousness of guilt he comes taking the things of Christ ; 
his work of atonement he applies to the troubled con- 
science. He kindles faith within the soul, and that, laying 
hold upon this work of Christ, applies it to itself. The 
demands of guilt are thus amply met and satisfied, and thus 
the guilty soul becomes consciously reconciled and at 
peace with God. Christ calls himself the "bread of life," 
because he supplies the wants of man's awakened spiritual 
nature. *' The bread that I will give is my flesh, which I 
will give for the life of the world." The soul laboring 
under the consciousness of guilt is in want. The flesh 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 1/3 

which Christ gives for the life of the world is exactly 
adapted to this want ; the soul partaking of it feels at once 
that it has drawn in a new and vital principle : His flesh 
is felt to be food indeed, and His blood to be drink indeed. 
The food, then, which is 'administered by Christ to the 
hungering soul, through the Holy Spirit, is His flesh and 
blood, as exhibited in His atonement. In the Holy Com- 
munion this food is, in symbol, significantly administered 
to the soul ; so that the believer by faith feels that he is 
actually feeding upon His body and drinking His blood, 
and he finds it food indeed, and is thankful. Under no 
conditions is the consciousness of redemption so entirely 
brought out as in the Holy Communion. On that occa- 
sion, through His ministers. He says distinctly to each of 
His disciples present (and to be such they must be poor 
in spirit), *'Take, eat; this is my Body, which is given 
for you; do this in remembrance -of me." And again, 
" Drink ye all of this; for this is my Blood of the New 
Testament, which is shed for you, and for many, for the 
remission of sins. Do this, as oft as ye shall drink it, 
in remembrance of Me." Thus it is that Christ admin- 
isters the forgiveness of sins ; and the penitent must be 
truly without faith who fails to receive it, and who does 
not go from that table thankful, joyful, his heart bursting 
with love towards Him who so loved him and gave Him- 
self for him. Christ administers forgiveness of sins through 
the Spirit, in His word, and ordinances. The condition, 
in order to receive the same, is in the penitent — simply 
faith. The more faith he has, the more decidedly he will 
receive it. Baptism and the Holy Communion are both 
means through which Christ confers, and we consciously 
receive the benefits froui Him, provided there be the faith 
to receive it. The reason why so little benefit is received is 
because we have so little faith. The Word is the original 
15^ 



174 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

and primary means of grace. The application of the truth 
of Christ to the soul by the Spirit through faith, imparts 
new life. An uninterrupted state of consciousness as to the 
forgiveness of our sins, and of God's favor and love 
towards us, is the thing which the soul chiefly desires, and 
this is verily administered by Christ in His kingdom. 

Forgiveness of sins, as we have said, is the act of God, 
immanent to him. As such, of course, we cannot be said 
to become conscious of it ; God only is conscious of his 
own acts. But it is also an active transitive act ; it passes 
over in its effects to us. God forgives ; and in the con- 
sciousness of peace which thereupon ensues within us, we 
thus immediately become conscious that we are forgiven. 
Thus, in a mediate sense, we may be said to be conscious 
of forgiveness of sins. Man commits a trespass against his 
fellow-man ; he becomes sorry for his act, goes to his fellow- 
man, and asks his forgiveness. It is granted. The tres- 
passer feels relieved ; and though he may continue to 
regret his fault, and be humbled whenever he thinks of it, 
still his mind is now relieved, for he has obtained forgive- 
ness for the injury he inflicted — the two parties are con- 
sciously reconciled. And so with relation to God. ''If we 
confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our 
sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." And in 
this case no less than in the human, the forgiveness is made 
a fact of consciousness. So long as forgiveness is not 
granted, it will be impossible for the soul to be at rest. Its 
peace will be disturbed ; it will feel uneasy as to God's 
attitude towards it. Provided the man does not view his 
sin, he may continue to feel comfortable; but let him but 
fairly eye his offence, and then, unless he be forgiven, he 
will be disquieted. The only point that remains is as to 
how this forgiveness is to be obtained. In the first place, 
then, confession of sin to God is necessary, and in general 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 1/5 

the whole state of penitence. Approaching God in such a 
frame, and confessing the sin, God immediately dispenses 
an absolute pardon. Observe the way in which this par- 
don is administered ; it comes through the kingdom of 
Christ. The soul obtains its pardon, as it did in the first 
place, by acting faith upon Christ crucified. God, by the 
Spirit, presents before the penitent soul the atoning work 
of Christ ; this the soul, by an act of faith, lays hold upon, 
and thenceforth peace is restored within. The soul now, 
-instead of its former uneasiness, finds itself filled with 
peace. It feels conscious, and knows that God has granted 
forgiveness. This process is gone through with at the very 
first, when the soul is first justified, and also throughout 
the whole Christian life. Wherever a conscious act of sin 
has been committed, the penitent soul obtains conscious 
peace by appropriating, by faith, the atoning work of 
Christ. God administers forgiveness of sins in general and 
in particular, by leading the soul to regard and appropriate 
the blood of His Son. The great point which we would 
make is, that forgiveness of sins, in the general and in the 
particular, is a fact in the human consciousness. The leg- 
acy which Christ left to His disciples was peace — peace 
of conscience, peace with God. He is styled the Peace- 
maker, who has made peace by the blood of His cross. The 
sinner, as a penitent, eyes his guilt, and is troubled ; as a 
believer, he eyes the Cross, and is reassured. He sees in 
it reconciliation, and argues that if while we were enemies, 
we were reconciled by His death, much more, being re- 
conciled, we shall be saved by His life. Consciousness 
of peace streams out like light from the Cross; upon it, in 
clear and legible letters, we read, ''Your sins and iniquities 
will I remember no more." In the Cross, then, there is a 
general grant of forgiveness of sins to all who desire it. 
The blood of Christ is to the realm of spirit what water is 



176 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

to the world of animal existence : every one that thirsts 
can drink. The penitent is one of the thirsty ; all that he 
requires is the faith to take this water of life, which is of- 
fered without money and without price. The unawakened 
know not any such want ; therefore, they will not drink. 
If they come at the invitation, they will, like the Jews of 
old, expect some temporal or some carnal blessing. But 
the poor in spirit are thirsty ; they need and crave this 
water of life. Nothing but faith is wanting that they 
'should satisfy their thirst and make redemption as much a 
fact of consciousness as the need of it. 

There are three phases of the Religious consciousness : 
there is the dormant consciousness, the awakened con- 
sciousness, and again there is the full Christian conscious- 
ness. The facts of this last are righteousness, peace, and joy 
in the Holy Ghost. 

The Protestantism of this age has very generally failed 
to recognize this important truth. In its teaching it fails 
to supply what the awakened soul most urgently demands, 
namely, peace with God. In its anxiety to define the doc- 
trine of justification by faith, to inform its disciples how 
God acts in this matter, in the letter it loses the spirit. 
Protestantism, as it is now very generally administered, 
teaches that consciousness of peace with God and of for- 
giveness of sins is possible only under an advanced expe- 
rience ; that it is a peculiar favor vouchsafed by God to 
some only, those who are eminent saints. The poor con- 
trite, timorous sinner must therefore expect to remain as 
he is ; or perhaps some day or other, when he is duly sancti- 
fied, he may hope to attain to the assurance of hope, or faith 
as it is called ; and then, and not until then, can he expect 
to feel at peace with God, and rejoice in the hope of 
the glory of God. Protestantism disconnects justification 
and man's consciousness of peace and reconciliation. It 



WHAT IS RELIGION? I// 

teaches that a man may be justified, be a true penitent 
believer wlio has confessed his sins to God and believes 
in Christ, and yet without peace ; necessarily therefore 
he is still afraid of God and unable to trust Him as a 
Father. It teaches that faith in Christ's atoning blood 
need not necessarily bring peace to the troubled con- 
science. Thus, according to this system, though forgive- 
ness of sins is granted in Heaven, it is seldom administered 
on earth, only in the cases of a few particular saints. Prac- 
tically, then, forgiveness of sins is not administered, accord- 
ing to this scheme, in Christ's kingdom. Sinners must 
wait until they get to heaven before they can feel any, cer- 
tainty of salvation. In experience they cannot rise above 
that of the saints under the Old Testament, and like them 
must die not having received -the promises. Redemption 
with them extends no farther than it did with those ancient 
saints. The Redeemer has come to us ; but as yet He does 
not administer any of his purchased powers. Evidently 
such a system is out of date. Its position in the historic 
development of the kingdom is a false one. It does not 
profess to administer what Christ is ready and willing to 
confer : the legacy which, in fact, in a covenant sealed 
with His blood. He has left to His disciples, "My peace 
I give unto you ; ' ' and surely He means peace with God. 
Without this peace, without being able to glory in Christ, 
it is impossible to love God ; without this the soul will 
necessarily be afraid of God, and will most inevitably be 
seeking to please Him with its own righteousness. Evi- 
dently, it is an error to separate God from the soul. God's 
acts are transitive ; what He binds in heaven is bound on 
earth, in the human consciousness ; and what He looses in 
heaven is loosed. Since He gave His Apostles this power. 
He must have it Himself. When God binds His curse 
upon the soul, it becomes a conscious fact; man feels the 

M 



178 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

load and groans under it. When noan becomes conscious 
of his guilt, he begins to feel the curse of the law. In his 
case, the throne of judgment has been set, the books have 
been opened ; God has entered into judgment with him. 
He is judging him now that thus he may not be condemned 
hereafter. The curse falls, and the soul enters at once 
into a conscious misery. What was bound in heaven is 
now bound on earth. And so again when God looses. 
When leading the heavy-laden soul, He draws it to Christ, 
and points it to Him as the Lamb of God that taketh away 
the sin of the world ; when looking at Him, the soul appro- 
priates Him as the bread of life to supply its wants ; then 
God looses. The curse is removed, and the soul being 
justified by faith feels at peace with God. When God jus- 
tifies, the curse is removed ; and when the^urse is removed, 
man becomes consciously reconciled with God, and can 
say from the bottom of his heart, '^ Abba, Father." 

The position very generally occupied by the Protestan- 
tism of the day is really a departure from the doctrine of 
justification by faith. It is a form without the spirit. It 
admits that justification depends on faith; but as to our 
peace with God, that (we can see no other way of escape) 
depends upon our good conduct — whether we lead such 
lives as to deserve it. Justification under this scheme re- 
sembles the case of a contingent remainder suspended in 
nubibus — dependent upon some condition which in all 
probability will never be fulfilled, and so most probably 
the remainder will never arrive at the maturity even of a 
vested interest. To try and make me believe that I am 
delivered from the curse of the law, when I feel that I am 
not, is folly. No : I can in this life be delivered from it, 
and will have Christ to thank for it, and am authorized to 
say with Paul, ''Christ has delivered me from the curse of 
the law." Protestantism is in error in denying conscious- 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 1/9 

ness of Redemption to be an essential element of the 
Kingdom. In its historic development, the Kingdom has 
a time when Redemption from the guilt, and also from the 
power of sin, is actually and consciously administered. It 
is administered by Christ through the Spirit, by the Word, 
and through the sacraments ; it is received by faith. There 
is such a thing now as the Christian consciousness, an ad- 
vance upon any state that has ever preceded it. It did not 
exist in its present form before the coming of Christ. The 
elements of that consciousness are in general, as stated by 
the Apostle Paul, righteousness, peace, and joy in the 
Holy Ghost. Thus the awakened consciousness has ad- 
vanced and become the Christian consciousness. And 
while guilt as an humbling element is retained, all that 
under the sense of it frightened the sinner has disappeared. 
In sight of the Cross, guilt humbles, but does not dismay. 
We clearly see peace in the blood of the Cross; and He 
who hangs there is our peace : thus guilt will only inflame 
love. *^For God commendeth His love towards us in that 
while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." The 
Christian consciousness, instead of fear, has as an element, 
the love of God, which is the only ground of true Gospel 
obedience. The only condition required in order that the 
power of Redemption may operate, is that the conscious- 
ness of guilt and sin should be awakened. This brings the 
soul into a conscious state of want. It wants forgiveness 
and peace ; it wants a strength above its own to struggle 
with sin ; it feels its need of Redemption. The supply 
for these wants is ever ready at hand, as much so as water 
is ; nothing further is required but that we should, by 
faith, drink. The atoning work of Christ satisfies the 
demands of guilt; the law and spirit of Christ, the de- 
mands of our ignorance and weakness. 

l!\iQ pneumatic consciousness passes through three stages. 



l80 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

Emerging out of the dormant state, it rises to that of want. 
The soul, in its consciousness of guilt and sin, feels des- 
perately the need of redemption. In the kingdom of 
Christ this want is met and supplied. Here, then, follows 
the third stage, namely, the consciousness of redemption, 
which is a leading element in the Christian consciousness. 
In it, guilt and redemption stand side by side. Looking 
within, the soul cries out, like St. Paul, '^Oh wretched 
man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the body of this 
death ? ' ^ Looking without, in the same breath it exclaims, 
*'I thank God through our Lord Jesus Christ; thanks be 
to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus 
Christ. ' ' The Christian who cannot enter into this experi- 
ence is out of place ; he is not up with his position in the 
historic development of the kingdom; for, as we have 
said, forgiveness of sins is now actually administered in 
the kingdom, in the consciousness of every one who will 
receive it. The standpoint of the Apostles is that, or 
should be that, of every Christian who is living under the 
present dispensation. That it is not, is not, we think, en- 
tirely from want of faith, but from confusion of ideas and 
ignorance. The separation of the objective and subjective, 
of justification and consciousness of peace, so prevalent 
under the Protestantism of this age, is mainly answerable 
for it. 

The Christian consciousness in its integrity has, then, as 
essential elements, ^' peace and joy in the Holy Ghost;" 
that is to say, the presence of the Holy Ghost in the 
soul makes itself manifest in peace and joy. Egotism is 
completely broken up, and alienation from God is sup- 
planted by love and filial trust. Self-complacency and 
pride are uprooted ; humility is the prevailing disposition. 
Such is the conscious condition of the soul — a condition 
which, beginning with knowledge of the law, opens with 



WHAT IS RELIGION? l8l 

the consciousness of guilt; and being finished under the 
Gospel, through faith in it, there is added to the soul the 
experience of redemption from guilt, and it is restored 
again to the love of God. 

Redemption from the bondage of its guilt is obtained 
through faith in the Son of God, especially his atoning 
work. It is maintained by the same means. When the 
soul falls into sin, first it confesses it; then, exercising faith 
in the cross of Christ, it regains its peace of mind. When- 
ever guilt would disquiet, the believer immediately turns 
his eyes to the Cross; and that which first gave peace has 
the power to maintain it. Thus peace of conscience is 
kept up, and the sinner continues to love and to trust in 
God as his Father. Here, then, we are properly at the 
beginning of a new life ; a new creature is now formed ; the 
Divine life is being developed in the soul ; there will be 
a new form of life. *' For if any man be in Christ Jesus, 
he is a new creature." This new Divine life begins then, 
properly, with the consciousness of redemption from guilt. 
The soul is now restored to a filial relation with respect to 
God, and enters upon a new career. 

The Divine life is then a life of consciousness ; and the 
soul that has entered into the experience of Christ's re- 
demptive power has taken up its proper position in the 
historic development of the kingdom. This condition, as 
we have seen, is attained and retained by means of faith. 
So long as faith in Christ's work lasts, will the consciousness 
of redemption from guilt continue. Whenever guilt rises 
threateningly in the consciousness, the attention has only 
to be directed to the proper object of faith, that is, Christ's 
sacrifice — his flesh and blood, as given for the life of the 
world — and at once fear will disappear, and the soul will 
return *to its state of rest and peace. The more familiar- 
ized the mind becomes with this process, the more steadily 
i6 



l82 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

will such a consciousness continue. By constant use, the 
object of faith passes over, and will finally enter into, the 
very constitution of the soul, will become a part of its na- 
ture; like blood, it will enter into the pneumatic circula- 
tion, becoming the life-blood of the soul — a fact in the 
consciousness. Thus the soul will, in its conscience" move- 
ments, naturally pass from the one fact to the other — from 
guilt to that of the atonement. The one will become a 
fact in the consciousness as thoroughly as the other. And 
the consciousness of redemption, so far as guilt is con- 
cerned, will become a steady fact in the soul. It is to this 
that Christ refers when he says, "Whoso eateth my flesh 
and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life ; for my flesh is 
meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed." In this 
process the objective becomes the subjective. By faith 
Christ's flesh and blood passes into the soul, is transplanted 
into the consciousness, becomes a fact in the experience, is 
the life of the soul. The stronger the faith, the more vivid 
will be this consciousness. In the act of the Holy Com- 
munion it becomes most intensely vivid. Sometimes the 
consciousness of guilt comes heavily down ; so much so as 
to repress for a time that of redemption ; but just as soon 
as the attention can be re-directed to the Cross, let but 
faith continue, and at once the soul is revived, is relieved, 
and restored to its former equilibrium of peace and joy. 

The Divine life springing out of the consciousness of re- 
demption is entirely dependent upon faith. "The life 
which I now live," says St. Paul, "I live by the faith of 
the Son of God." It is attained and retained entirely by 
faith ; in its exercise it is a state of consciousness ; and it is 
sustained and fed by faith in Christ. His flesh, which he 
gave for the life of the world, is the bread which the soul 
by faith feeds upon ; thus this state of consciousness is sus- 
tained. 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 183 

Beginning life with this encouraging experience, the new 
creature finds itself unexpectedly encountered by another 
obstacle. Hitherto, sin had been almost exclusively felt 
and viewed under its aspect of guilt. The soul, in viewing 
it in the consciousness, had taken cognizance of it, not as 
a power, but rather as an act and a series of acts ; and in 
this connection it was the guilt of sin which had fixed it- 
self as a fact in the consciousness. But now, that the soul 
has been delivered from guilt as a condemning power, sin 
begins to appear under its other aspect, namely, as a law'. 
And now, when the soul has fondly imagined that all was 
over, that it was free all at once, it finds itself sadly mis- 
taken, and becomes conscious that, so far from being 
free, it is under a bondage. ^'It finds within a law that 
when it would do good, evil is present with it." It finds 
itself in the presence of, and in conflict with, sin as a prin- 
ciple and a power. Thus a new view of the Christian life 
begins to dawn upon the soul, and another fact "becomes 
established in the Christian consciousness. The guilt of 
sin and the power of sin become now clearly separated ; 
the demands of the former have been met and satisfied ; 
those of the latter, which now make themselves felt, will, 
in due time, be satisfied also. The Christian life then 
opens with a conflict. Sin is a power tending downwards 
to death. The Divine life which now occupies the con- 
sciousness, is a tendency towards righteousness — commu- 
nion with God and life. Two forces have then met in the 
soul. The Christian consciousness furnishes the arena in 
which the struggle is to take place. Let us see, then, how 
the powers residing in the Kingdom of Christ are adminis- 
tered in such a situation. The process which now is in 
course of development, is what is generally known as sanc- 
tification. 

In order that the soul should be sustained and advanced 



184 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

in the struggle with sin, it is, in the first place, necessary 
that it should be maintained in the consciousness of its 
justification. This is a necessary fiindamental condition 
in order to the maintenance of the Divine life ; without 
such an experience, the soul must continue depressed under 
the bondage of guilt, and therefore servilely afraid of God. 
Such a condition is inconsistent with the presence of the 
love of God in the heart, and of a filial trust and confi- 
dence in Him as a Father, which are essential elements of 
the Divine life. First, the soul must be delivered from 
this bondage of guilt and fear, and consciously reconciled 
to God. This experience is, as we have seen, obtained by 
receiving and feeding upon the flesh and blood of Christ; 
and thus it is retained ; thus the love of God is maintained 
in the soul. Christ as the administrator of the powers of 
his kingdom, by his spirit applying the word, continues to 
feed the soul from day to day ; he gives it its daily bread ; 
and thus the consciousness of redemption is maintained as 
a fact in the soul. In the love of God and of Christ, the 
Divine, the Christian life begins ; and during its whole 
progress this fundamental condition is more or less main- 
tained ; sometimes vivid, and again more faintly. Man 
has really no direct power over this condition, all that 
he can do is to put himself in contact with the object which 
excites it. Consciousness as a state is peculiarly the work 
of the Spirit. He breathes upon the soul, and at once, like 
letters written in invisible ink, when held before the fire, 
the facts of consciousness stand out clearly and legibly. 
Prayer is the only power which is available in the prem- 
ises ; it alone mediately can bring about the desired efi"ect. 
Consciousness of guilt and of redemption are, therefore, 
peculiarly the work of a supernatural power — the Holy 
Spirit. Sometimes either of them, or both together, arise 
suddenly in the soul; but there are occasions — such as 



WHAT IS RELIGION? ' 185 

that of meditation, and reading the Word, preaching, and 
times of affliction — which the Spirit uses particularly as 
peculiarly adapted to produce such effects. The law, as 
adapted to bring out the consciousness of guilt and sin, is 
the means generally used by the Spirit to bring about that 
effect. And while the soul meditates upon it and considers 
God and the end of the ungodly, the fire kindles, and a 
new state begins to arise in the soul. The Gospel, as 
adapted to bring out the consciousness of redemption, is 
the means which the Spirit uses to produce that effect. We 
in ourselves really have no power over such frames ; they 
are the work of the Spirit. Thus, all life-long we are made 
to feel that of ourselves we are insufficient to help ourselves ; 
that we are entirely dependent ; that all our sufficiency is 
of God. Therefore we are essentially creatures of prayer : 
'^ men ought always to pray, and not to faint." Prayer is 
man's most precious prerogative, his most eff'ectual weapon 
in the fight of faith. At times man will be left listless, life- 
less, with nothing but that dogged faith which says, ''Though 
He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." Then there is no- 
thing left one but to pray and to wait ; and even when we 
cannot pray, we can wait. 

The fundamental element in the Christian consciousness 
is then the work of the Spirit, and is maintained by faith ; 
maintained by feeding upon the flesh and blood of Christ 
by faith. 

Consciousness of sin as a power is, too, the work of the 
Spirit. It is begun and maintained by infusing into the 
soul the law and spirit of Christ. The law of Christ, upon 
justification, becomes naturally the rule of the disciple's 
obedience; "If ye love me," He says, "keep my com- 
mandments." The example of Christ becomes the ideal 
of the disciple, pis strongest desire is to be like Him. 
He imitates his master, obeys His laws, strives to attain 
16* 



l86 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

His spirit. All this is at first objective ; gradually, how- 
ever, in the effort, the objective passes over into the sub- 
jective. Gradually, in this life of obedience and imitation, 
the external becomes the internal ; law becomes spirit ; 
Christ is reproduced in the heart by faith. In this effort 
to conform to the will of Christ, man at once finds himself 
resolved into a duality; " to will is present with him, but 
how to perform that which is good, he finds not. For 
the good that I would, I do not ; but the evil that I would 
not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more 
I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me." Here, then, 
the soul becomes conscious of sin as a power acting in an- 
tagonism with its ruling desire. ^'I find then a law that 
when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I de- 
light in the law of God, after the inward man ; but I see 
another law in my members, warring against the law of my 
mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin and 
death." Such is the state of things which the effort after 
conformity with the will of Christ develops in the con- 
sciousness. The true self, in its aspirations and desires, is 
impeded and held in check by the sinful principle, until at 
length galled under this bondage, wretched in the experi- 
ence of its impotence, it cries out, " Oh wretched man that 
I am ! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? " 
Such is the language and the feeling of the soul when once 
it has entered upon the struggle with sin. The same cry 
was forced from the soul when it experienced its burden of 
guilt ; a pressing want was felt, and it was supplied. ''The 
flesh and blood" of Christ, received by faith, supplied it. 
Here, too, there is a want; the soul feels its need of some 
one to give it power over sin ; it feels its own impotence, 
and it cries out for assistance. Christ, in the Gospel, of- 
fers Himself, and the soul in faith depending on Him and 
on His strength, can say with St. Paul, ''I can do all 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 187 

things through Christ who strengtheneth me." Here then, 
as in the former case, Christ supplies a conscious want of 
the soul, and faith is the means through which the assist- 
ance comes. His atonement was received in the first case ; 
here it is His Spirit. The soul leans directly upon Him, 
depends upon His strength, and thus overcomes. 

In the struggle with sin, a duality, we have said, is de- 
veloped in the consciousness, which becomes more and 
more evident the longer and the closer the struggle is waged. 
This duality, as will be seen, resides not in the personality, 
but in its conditions ; in an antagonism which has been 
excited between the conscious life and that of self as 
instinctive and spontaneous ; between the law of the pneu- 
matic and of the psychical life ; an antagonism beginning 
with the act of regeneration. And here, therefore, we are 
to find what is essentially the Divine life ; and will see its 
gradual development. The soul being led through the 
experience of guilt to that of redemption, in the spirit of 
love to God and Christ and of filial trust, enters upon a 
new life. That life is one of obedience and conformity to 
Christ ; this path is one of difficulty ; it opens with con- 
flict ; a duality is developed : on the one hand, we find 
the new man ; on the other, the old. The new man is the 
regenerate, the old man the body of sin. It is important 
that these two forces should be distinctly separated, so that 
we may clearly recognize them. 

The pneumatic life exists as consciousness ; uninterrupted 
consciousness is spiritual life in its highest form. The life 
of spontaneity is that of childhood. Self-consciousness is 
the development of a duality in the soul. First, there is 
the primary self, which feels, thinks, and acts immediately 
and instinctively ; then there is the secondary self, parallel 
with the primary and conscious of it, as feeling, thinking, 
and acting. If this separation be complete ; if the con- 



l88 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

sciousness of the secondary over the primary self be unin- 
terrupted ; in such case there is a complete duality devel- 
oped within the soul, the object and the subject being 
both found in the unity of the personality. This duality 
does not, however, reside in the personality ; the self that 
thinks, feels, and acts, that same self is conscious of itself 
as so doing. The duality is rather in the condition of the 
self. Self, in its primary condition, feels, thinks, and acts 
instinctively ; such it is by nature. Just as a plant nat- 
urally puts forth leaves, buds, and bears fruit, so man 
naturally reasons, feels, and acts. Such, then, is the pri- 
mary condition of human nature; these are its essential 
characteristics, which characterize and distinguish it from 
other forms of life. The secondary condition of human 
nature is, that it is conscious of itself, as feeling, thinking, 
and acting. Here, then, there is an advance ; here we 
find one of the essential characteristics of pure spirit ; here 
we rise to the pneumatic life. This self-consciousness is 
more or less interrupted in human nature. In the state of 
childhood, it scarcely can be said to exist; where it does, it 
is generally exceedingly inconstant; sometimes present, 
then for long periods absent ; during its absence man falls 
back into the primary state of childhood. All the powers 
of human nature — sensitive, intellectual, and moral — maybe 
in active operation, and yet man may be in the unconscious 
state. Such is the state of childhood ; but as man gradu- 
ally emerges from this state into that of manhood, self- 
consciousness becomes developed; first it is remittent, 
inconstant ; gradually, through exercise, it becomes more 
constant and clearer. 

Residing in this highest region of life, we can detect the 
movements of what was once man's actual condition, now 
in its feeble movements, just serving to remind us of what 
we might have been. At times, and even during periods 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 189 

of every man's life — especially when the soul is quiet, and 
in a contemplative mood — there arise sad reflections with- 
in; dim forebodings darkly shroud the future. The soul 
is dissatisfied with itself, and the sad wails of hopeless aspira- 
tions swell like funeral dirges through the depths within. 
Desires for a better life become articulate, and sometimes 
grow so strong as to arrive at the maturity of a resolution. 
The soul is resolved to do better ; it longs for a higher life ; 
but then it feels its helplessness, remembers resolutions 
made before, and made only to be broken. Thus sadness 
and dissatisfaction settle down upon the soul, and it plunges 
into pleasure or excitement of some kind to stifle these crav- 
ings for a better, higher life; here, then, is a standing 
witness in the soul that man is born for something better 
than what he is. These last embers of the heavenly fire, 
bursting out now and then into a sudden gleam, illumine 
the gloomy depths of the soul, and then all becomes dark 
again ; the fire is out, and all is cold and gloomy as before. 
There are many ways of stifling these aspirations ; the life 
of worldliness or of absorbing business are among the 
most efl'ectual. In the Moral life, too, this want is effectu- 
ally stifled ; the self-satisfaction which is thus engendered, 
wars against these higher aspirations, and extinguishes them. 
The moral and the religious are both forms of the pneu- 
matic life, but both fall far short of actually realizing it. 
The religious goes farther than the moral; but both only 
betray, and in the end extinguish the aspirations of the 
higher life ; both are forms of self-deception. 

The fundamental characteristic of the Divine life is that 
it begins in the truth. Man is not in and of the truth until 
he becomes conscious of his guilt and of the bondage 
which he is under. So long as we think '* we have no sin, 
we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." We 
must, in the first place, open ourselves to the light of 



IQO WHAT IS RELIGION? 

God's truth. ^^ Every one that doeth the truth, cometh to 
the light, that his deeds may be m.ade manifest that they 
are wrought in God." Self-knowledge cannot be obtained 
until the soul honestly opens itself to the light of the truth, 
and then judges itself just as that truth does; until can- 
didly it calls evil, evil, though it be attached to one's self. 
Unless we judge ourselves now, we must be judged here- 
after. Self-condemnation is the beginning of truth in the 
soul. Naturally, we would justify ourselves, and deceive 
ourselves; but truth requires that all this be done away 
with ; that we be true to ourselves, even though it cost us the 
mortification of the damned. Egotism itself, and in all its 
forms, is a lie. Man is not self-sufficient, is not indepen- 
dent, is not sinless and guiltless ; it is all a lie. Egotism is 
this in its very essence. And the moral life and the reli- 
gious, failing to recognize the truth, they too are lies, the 
whole thing is a falsehood, Man must go back to the very 
beginning, and begin with recognizing the truth, by beat- 
ing upon his breast, and crying out, " God be merciful to 
me a sinner;" and again, '' Who shall deliver me from the 
body of this death ? ' ' Behold the two cases, the Publican 
and the Pharisee ; behold the truth and a lie. The Phar- 
isee was a moral man ; more, a religious one ; but also he 
was an incarnate falsehood ; the Publican is the truth, both 
in and of it. The Divine life has its foundation, then, in 
truth. The soul ceases to deceive itself by a moral or a 
religious life, but recognizes what in truth it really is, and 
what it deserves. Here faith comes in, and upon Christ, 
as presented in the gospel, lays hold, and appropriates 
Hira ; appropriates His flesh and blood for the healing of a 
wounded conscience ; His strength or spirit it rests upon 
as a means of escape from the bondage of sin. This recog- 
nition of the truth of one's condition makes the Divine life, 
a life of faith, possible. Until this takes place, man will 
inevitably depend upon himself for salvation. 



WHAT IS RELIGION? IQI 

The life of faith, which is the subjective condition of 
the Divine life, is, dependence upon another; upon Christ 
as presented in the gospel for justification and for sanctifi- 
cation. With this life of faith or implicit reliance upon 
Christ, there begins a new epoch in the human life. Thus, 
desires and aspirations which formerly could scarcely at- 
tain to the maturity of a fluctuating resolution, which was 
never kept, now become ruling principles. The pneu- 
matic life becomes invigorated, and the determination to 
do the will of Christ, and to contend against sin, becomes 
the permanent attitude of the soul. It is in this region of 
the soul, the renewed pneumatic life, that Christ or the 
Spirit takes up His abode. He resides not in the lower 
forms of life, but in this highest, the pneumatic, the con- 
scious life. Redemption takes hold of this principle : this 
is the only point of contact which it can find in fallen 
human nature. In fallen angels it is not present; it is 
what makes human redemption possible. Laying hold of 
these faint expiring aspirations, the Spirit of life revives and 
strengthens them ; he makes them to become influences, the 
standing resolution of the soul. Here, then, we find the 
germ of the new creation, the new man ; and in this region 
of life he is complete, perfect : here sanctification begins ; 
from hence the law of a new life is to issue, and gradually 
to extend its influence until it has brought the whole soul 
and body under subjection, in obedience to Christ. Man, 
however, in the consciousness of his weakness, relies not 
upon anything within him, but upon the objective Christ, 
His work and His spirit. Thus man lives upon what is 
without, and is sanctified by the effectual working of the 
Spirit within. 

Consciousness is, essentially, duality. The condition in 
which man finds himself primarily, is one of discord. 
Everyone must sometimes feel ''the good that I would. 



192 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

I do not, and the evil that I would not, that I do." 
There is, then, an antagonism existing between the forces 
within. In the primal state this duality is not very dis- 
tinct ; and, moreover, the natural inclinations, as a gene- 
ral rule, override the dictates of the higher life. Sin has 
dominion; and though sometimes restrained, yet eventu- 
ally it reigns supreme, beating down all opposition. But 
in regeneration this state of affairs is reversed ; sin has 
not the dominion. A deadly struggle has begun, and the 
sinful habits and desires are now squarely met by the pow- 
er residing in the higher life ; and, therefore, there is war 
within, a conflict that will continue as long as life lasts. 
Now the law of the Spirit of life has made the soul free 
from the law of sin and death; and, therefore, though 
there is a struggle, yet in general the Spirit is victorious ; 
and thus a tone is given to the life. Habit after habit is 
assailed, fiercely grappled with, and quivering in the death 
gripe of the Spirit, is hurled to the ground and fiercely 
trampled under foot. '' I hold under my body," says St. 
Paul, ''and bring it into subjection." It is a deadly 
struggle, no quarter given on either side. 

So complete is the constitution in which the sinful 
'tendencies reside, that it can be regarded as an organism. 
They resolve themselves into two distinct classes : the af- 
fections and lusts of the body, and of the mind ; all the 
forms of sensuality, the appetites and passions, fall un- 
der the first ; all the spiritual affections and desires, such as 
ambition, pride, desire of revenge, covetousness, all these 
fall under the second class. Mankind, as a class, is, if any- 
thing, more under the dominion of his bodily lusts than of 
his spiritual. Lust in all its forms, especially the sexual, has 
always proved the leading element in human degradation. 
Intemperance, unchastity, and lasciviousness rapidly drag 
human nature down into the abyss. Such is the process 



WHAT IS RELIGION? I93 

of human degradation, according to St. Paul in the first 
chapter of Romans. Seeing, then, that these lusts are 
especially predominant, it is natural that human depravity- 
should be designated with an especial reference to them. 
Thus the whole organism of sin is generally designated as 
the flesh, because it is the '* fleshly lusts" that generally 
predominate, and that war most eff'ectually against the soul ; 
not that the^other class of lusts do not exist : the lusts of 
the mind work, too, powerfully in human nature, manifest- 
ing themselves disastrously in the individual life and in the 
history of the race. But it is all the forms of fornication, 
intemperance, and uncleanness, that exist most generally 
in human nature, and drag it down most rapidly into the 
abyss. It is with all these tendencies that the higher con- 
sciousness established in regeneration comes into immediate 
conflict. In that region of life the law of God reigns, in 
it dwells the Holy Spirit. The law of the Spirit of life 
directs its tendencies. The Holy Spirit, be it noted, 
dwells not in the flesh, but in man's 7tvsvfx.a or spirit. The 
human consciousness has become the organ of the Holy 
Spirit. All that is holy in man is found here. Here is to 
be found the delighting in the law of God, the desire and 
inclination towards holiness ; here is to be found that 
gravitation towards God and His will, that whenever the 
consciousness is alive, makes itself felt in opposition to the 
desires of the flesh. Here, then, we find another complete 
organism — a new man which is created in his outlines 
after the image of Christ. A faint, indistinct, fitful one, 
perhaps, at first ; but still an image and reproduction of 
Christ. Here is the place we are to look in order to find 
the fulfilment of the promises of Christ as to His dwelling 
in the heart. His communion with the soul. His coming in 
and supping with us. Christ dwells not in the flesh, but 
in the human spirit, and as it is regenerate. The promises 
17 N 



194 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

of Christ are as really fulfilled in the matter of sancti- 
fication as in that of justification. ^' For this is the cove- 
nant that I will make with the house of Israel after those 
days, saith the Lord : I will put my laws into their minds, 
and write them in their hearts/ ' This has actually been 
done ; in the new man we have the fulfilment of the prom- 
ise evidently before us. Its tendency is towards holiness ; 
it cannot sin, just as the old man cannot be holy: 
it is essentially sinless ; in it the Spirit has become the law 
of man's life, and he cannot sin but by quenching this life. 
To increase in this life, man must cultivate self-conscious- 
ness, and must yield himself to the spirit, must walk in the 
spirit ; that is, must walk in the direction of the tendency 
of his self-consciousness ; and he will not fulfil the lusts of 
the flesh. On the other hand, in order to weaken the 
power of the flesh, he must mortify it ; and to this end 
must deprive the sinful affections and lusts of their food ; 
by starving them they become weak, hence the meaning 
of fasting. By this means the sinful desires are deprived 
of their food ; they are never indulged, and thus they be- 
come weakened, and gradually deadened. But they do 
not become dead ; for let temptation, which is an oppor- 
tunity for their indulgence, but arise, and at once at any 
period of life they will make themselves felt again. Thus 
it will become evident that they are not dead, but only 
kept under. And man, knowing his weakness, must be 
vigilant, and avoid all occasions of temptation as much as 
possible. *'Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed 
lest he fall." Thus the sinful body is kept under ; it is a 
painful operation, especially at first, when the lusts are 
strong, and therefore it is called crucifixion : it is a lingering 
death, too, and so doubly hard to be endured. In the 
Christian life, then, we have, on the one hand, mortifica- 
tion of the members of the body of sin ; and on the other, 



WHAT IS RELIGION? I95 

a walking in the Spirit, and an increase in its fruits. The 
body of sin is not sanctified, it is crucified ; and this pain- 
ful death will not end until, as Luther vividly remarks, 
** shovel strokes be fetched upon it." But though the body 
of sin, the flesh, is not sanctified, the body is. There is a 
struggle between the flesh and the spirit for the body ; and 
by body, we mean not only the human form, but all the 
human faculties : there is a struggle for this prize, an eff"ort 
to rescue the body, with all its members, from the service 
of unrighteousness, and " to bring them into captivity with 
every thought to the obedience of Christ." Gradually all 
the human faculties become the servants of the Spirit ; the 
mental faculties, yielded to the service of God, become 
charisinata; the physical members are used to glorify God, 
and to advance his kingdom ; thus the mouth, from blas- 
pheming, becomes the organ by which is preached the un- 
speakable riches of Christ; the knees are now bent in 
heartfelt prayer ; the hands are busy in advancing the inter- 
ests of Christ's kingdom; the whole body and soul becomes 
sanctified, and is daily offered as a living sacrifice to God, 
holy and acceptable. So sanctification extends from spirit 
through soul and body, until the whole man is brought to 
the obedience of Christ. Thus we have finally an image 
and reproduction of Christ ; a man of faith, whose whole 
soul and body is dedicated to God, whose meat and drink 
is to do his Father's and his Saviour's will. And yet all 
this while, the flesh still exists ; all its organism is com- 
plete, it is but kept under ; hence, the necessity for cau- 
tion and unceasing vigilance in the Christian life. And 
the Christian, knowing this state of things, is a man of 
prayer; and of faith ; he stands in the strength of Christ, 
being clothed with the panoply supplied by God. The life 
of sanctification, or the Divine life in this relation, just 
like that of justification, is maintained by faith. In the 



10 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

one the soul lives upon the dead Christ, upon his flesh 
and blood, as offered for the life of the world ; in the 
other, upon the living Christ. '' Being reconciled by His 
death, we are saved through His life." '^ The life which I 
now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who 
loved me, and gave himself for me," says St. Paul. 

In the Kingdom of Christ, then, we find that the grace 
of sanctification is as effectually administered as is that of 
the forgiveness of sins. Christ Himself, through His Spirit 
and word, administers both ; and they both make them- 
selves to be felt and recognized in the human conscious- 
ness. Forgiveness of sins as administered by Christ be- 
comes, in the human consciousness, peace with God, and 
forms the basis of a filial love and trust. Regeneration 
and sanctification as administered by Christ become, in the 
human consciousness, the conscious experience of an up- 
ward tendency toward God. The soul becomes conscious 
that it has been transformed ; that another power, the Di- 
vine Spirit, has taken possession of it ; that the law of its 
being has been changed ; that the will of God is now its 
greatest delight, the object of its strongest love and desire. 
The soul becomes conscious that God is its all in all ; that 
His will is its will : thus the power of Christ is as sensibly 
felt in sanctification as in justification. The one is as much 
a subject of consciousness as the other: thus "the Spirit 
beareth witness with our spirits that we are the sons of 
God." This soul is conscious of Christ's presence within 
it, and "works out its own salvation with fear and trem- 
bling," conscious that "it is God that worketh in it both 
to will and to do." Conscious of the inward presence of 
Omnipotence, pledged to its sanctification, it feels that it 
can do all things through Christ who strengthens it. Om- 
nipotence can accomplish anything ; faith in Him who is 
omnipotent can do wonders ; by it miracles were wrought ; 



WHAT IS RELIGION? \()J 

and by it sanctification too, the greatest of moral miracles, 
is wrought in the soul. Abraham believed in God, as in 
Him who was able to raise the dead \ and by faith hoped 
against hope. Human sanctification requires the exercise 
of the same faith — it is the resurrection of the soul. 
Christ tells us ''the hour is coming, now is, when the dead 
shall hear the voice of the Son of Man, and they that hear 
shall live." This resurrection is now proceeding, and in 
him who believes in Christ as the quickener of dead souls 
it takes place. *' I am the resurrection and the life, saith 
the Lord; he that believeth on me, though he were dead, 
yet shall he live. ' ' All depends on faith. The Divine life 
is thus engendered and sustained, like forgiveness of sins, 
by faith in the Son of God. In the one case the flesh and 
blood of Christ is the food taken ; in the other, it is that 
Spirit which He Himself promised to send, and which was 
to be in the soul as a well of water springing up unto ever- 
lasting life. 

Finally, the Divine life is not like the moral and the re- 
ligious realized in this world. Its expectation is far ahead 
of its present actuality. At present it is hidden with Christ 
in God. It is true that "now are we the sons of God : but 
this doth not yet appear as it shall at the manifestation of 
the sons of God." The life is as yet confined to the indi- 
vidual consciousness; and here in this world, what with 
the struggle with the body of sin in the effort to wrest the 
members and faculties of soul and body from the service 
of sin, and to make them the servants of righteousness unto 
holiness ; and what with the struggle with the powers of 
the world and Satan, — there arises nothing but conflict 
and disappointment. The leading of the Divine Spirit is 
by no means satisfactorily realized in the general life. 
The spirit, man's pneumatic personality, is holy ; but not 
as yet is the body and soul, nor ever will be as long as the 
17* 



198 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

body of sin remains. The body must die because of sin, 
though the spirit be alive through its inherent new created 
state of righteousness. Thus it happens that there is a 
want of correspondence between the spiritual or the Di- 
vine life in regenerate man, and the actual life as realized. 
His whole soul and body is not as yet sanctified, brought 
completely to the obedience of Christ. Thus the Spirit is 
in travail ; it fills the soul with ^'groanings that cannot be 
uttered, and of this we are conscious." Ourselves, which 
*'have the first-fruits of the Spirit, groan within ourselves, 
waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the 
body." Then, and not until then, will the Divine life be 
realized, and therefore it is that we live ''in hope." We 
through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by 
faith, and as yet are saved only in hope. The Christian 
consciousness contains in it conspicuously these three ele- 
ments : righteousness, peace, and joy in the conscious in- 
dwelling of the Holy Ghost. All these are His work, and 
maintained by faith in the Son of God. Such, in brief, is 
an outline of the Divine life. It begins, strictly speaking, 
with the experience of Redemption from guilt. It re- 
tains this experience all along. It ends and is realized in 
glory in the other world, where sin and sorrow are known 
no more. " Beloved, now," consciously, "are we the 
sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be ; 
but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like 
Him, for we shall see Him as He is." 



PART III. 
THE INSTRUMENTALITY. 



199 



CHAPTER I. 

THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. 

THE Scriptures are the Word of God ; Nature is His 
work. *' All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, 
and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, 
for instruction in righteousness." The Scriptures can be 
considei;ed under two relations: first, in relation to the 
individual, and then with relation to the race. Man can 
be viewed individually or collectively. As a collective 
mass, the whole race may be viewed and considered as one 
individual ; and it is to man viewed as such that we will at 
present direct our attention. The Scriptures, as a whole, 
stand in a certain relation to man as a collective individ- 
ual. They propose to enlighten, convert, instruct, and 
discipline him, so as to raise him to a higher and better 
order of existence than the one he now occupies. Consid- 
ered under this aspect, the Scriptures fall at once into two 
divisions, or into dispensations : the preparatory and the 
final — the law and the Gospel. This division holds good 
in the individual as well as in the race. The two are not 
historically separable; they are developed side by side. 
The distinction between them in their historic develop- 
ment, is, that under the preparatory dispensation, law was 
the most prominent feature, the whole system being one 
of restraint and prohibition, a strictly disciplinary system. 
Under the final dispensation, all this is reversed, and spirit 
is substituted for letter. The grand object of the prepara- 
tory dispensation was to create a conscious spiritual want 
in human nature ; to bring man in some way to a conscious- 
ness of his sinfulness and guilt, of his weakness, and inabil- 



202 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

ity of himself to deliver himself; and to prepare him for 
the great Deliverer. The final dispensation satisfies all 
these wants, and ends in glorifying man, in body as well 
as soul, and elevating him, after this life, to a full commu- 
nion with God. 

The preparatory dispensation falls again into two divi- 
sions or systems. The grand object being to create a 
conscious spiritual want, this is effected first through the 
discipline of misery, or, secondly, through the discipline of 
a pious education ; and this brings us to the religious divi- 
sion of the human race into Jew and Gentile. The Scrip- 
tures confine themselves, historically and doctrinally, after 
the calling of Abraham, exclusively to the Jews. This 
nation being taken by God into a peculiar relation with 
respect to himself, thenceforth they are exclusively his 
pupils, they are made the subjects of a careful religious 
education conducted by God himself; to them are com- 
mitted the oracles of God, a gradually accumulating de- 
posit of Divine. truth, which in due time is to be opened to 
the Gentiles. 

The^ religious history of the world divides the race into 
two sections, Heathenism and Judaism. Heathenism was 
cut loose with but one revealed fact; the promise of a 
Redeemer, ratified and symbolized by sacrifice. It forgot 
the promise, retained the institution, but lost its meaning. 
Heathenism, then, in its religious history, is not a devel- 
opment or progress, but a retrogradation, a lapse from the 
worship of the true God ; in its finality a worship of devils ; 
in this process human nature enters upon a degradation. 

Judaism is a progress ; first, promise and sacrifice is re- 
tained with a knowledge of the true God; meaning of 
promise is gradually unfolded ; sacrifice is gradually inter- 
preted ; all along the faith of the believer attaches itself to 
God and this promise ; he feeds upon the promise ; thus 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 2O3 

hope is maintained, and love to God kept up. Without 
such a promise man could not know of God's merciful dis- 
position, and under a sense of guilt would be afraid of 
Him. All along, therefore. Revelation was to man the 
means of maintaining the Divine life in the soul. 

Truth coming through inspiration is revelation. The 
prophet through whom the revelation is originally made, 
speaking out of the depths of his consciousness, and under 
the conscious inspiration of the spirit, knows that what he 
declares is from God, and is the truth. Those who origi- 
nally received the revealed truth, do so for two reasons : 
because they are confident, through the proper credentials, 
of the inspiration of the prophet ; and, moreover, because, 
in the case of a large body of spiritual truth, they them- 
selves being spiritual, recognize the truth of what is de- 
clared. The truth that Paul declared under inspiration, 
the consciousness of Peter and James responded to ; they 
knew in themselves that he spoke the truth ; that he spoke 
in the spirit, and uttered God's truth. The inspired one 
is thus but the interpreter of the consciousness of the spirit- 
ual. Hence, all that are spiritual, says St. Paul, are capa- 
ble, more or less, of passing judgment upon the revelation. 

Doctrinal truth comes to us as a historic deposit, and must 
always be thus delivered to the succeeding generations. We 
have the same criteria by which to judge of the truth as in 
former days. We, in the first place, decide whether he who 
professes to utter inspired truth is properly accredited. This 
evidence goes to- strengthen personal authority ; and such, 
in the main, was the object of miracles. But this argument 
must ever be more convincing to those who are immediate 
witnesses of such wonders. To us, who are so far off from 
them, they do not appear so convincing, and especially is 
this the case when one lives, as we happen to, in a skepti- 
cal age. The strength of miracles, as an accrediting in- 



204 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

strumentality, is, therefore, not the most to be relied upon ; 
nor did Christ, when he was upon earth, ever rely most 
upon them. His Apostles appeal to His resurrection ; but 
even in this case we must remember that they were, as it 
were, within sight of that great event. Christ's miracles 
were rather of the nature of signs; they pointed to man's 
spiritual condition, and to Himself as the physician who 
could heal man of his blindness, and lameness, and deaf- 
ness, and deadness. He appealed to a carnal generation 
by His works ; but to a spiritual. He appeals and manifests 
His truth in His words and His self-manifestation. *' If I 
do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I 
do, though ye believe not me, believe the works." In 
judging then of spiritual doctrines and truth, as we now 
have it, the stress is not to be laid so much on per- 
sonal authority, but rather on the truth itself; it of itself 
commends itself to man's conscience as a manifestation 
of the truth. The argument which is most convincing 
as to the Divine nature of Christianity, is Christianity 
itself. Christ, by the spiritual, must be recognized as 
God. His flesh and blood, as offered for the life of the 
world, is to the broken and contrite heart food and drink 
indeed, ''as rivers of water in dry places," ''as the 
shadow of a great rock in a weary land." It is useless to 
try and prove to a carnal mind the necessity for an atone- 
ment ; without the consciousness of guilt in the soul, it will 
all be in vain, and the doctrine will only be a subject for 
cavil. But let guilt once take possession of the soul, and 
then all will be changed. Give the soul in such a condi- 
tion but faith, and with avidity it will take and eat that 
body, and drink that blood, and will be refreshed and 
thankful; it will feed on Him in its heart by faith with 
thanksgiving. Thus will this doctrine be recognized as 
Divine, and every line uttered by St. Paul will strike home 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 20$ 

to the heart. The strongest argument for the truth of these 
doctrines is to be found in the experience. The con- 
sciousness of the spiritual is one's best evidence of things 
unseen, and having the experience of some of the truths 
of revelation, one is ready to receive them all, even though 
they may not be experienced nor comprehended in their 
depths. And here the weight of personal authority comes 
in. Having experienced the power of some of the doc- 
trines of revelation, we naturally conclude that there is a 
power in all which emanate from the same source. The 
Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom; but 
*' we preach," says the Apostle, '* Christ crucified ; to the 
Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness ; but 
to them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the 
power of God and the wisdom of God." The Jews repre- 
sent one class of men — the carnal, who are impressed 
only by visible signs, who require a miracle before they 
will believe. Such men must rely exclusively upon per- 
sonal authority in the reception of a doctrine. Such were 
the Jews ; such is the Roman Catholic theory, which is 
able to take an infallible man-pope, as its source of truth. 
The Greeks, however, must needs have wisdom, a philos- 
ophy, a connected philosophic system. Spiritual truth 
must, to such, be a science. And such there are at this 
day — those, for instance, who would have us to account 
for the atonement on philosophic principles, before they 
will receive it as of God's truth ; such is the whole school 
of Rationalists. But to them who are called, who are 
in the proper spiritual condition, broken and contrite in 
heart, heavy-laden with guilt, waiting for redemption ; to 
such humble ones Christ crucified is consciously the power ^ 
of God, and to them the evident wisdom of God. Chris- 
tianity, for its reception, depends on the state of the heart \ 
only those who are called can really ever be convinced of 
i8 



206 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

its truth. ''No man can say that Christ is the Lord except 
by the Holy Spirit." 

The providence of God, as exhibited in Biblical history, 
in its broadest aspect, is but a gigantic scheme for the re- 
' ligious education of humanity. The race, as we have said, 
falls into two divisions, Jew and Gentile. There was an 
educational system being worked out in both of these divi- 
sions. Cut loose from the sources of light, and soon los- 
ing the little that it had at first ; the Gentile world was cast 
adrift, apparently by God, to work out its own destiny. And 
yet this was only apparently so, for all the while God was 
guiding the ship, and conducting it to the final haven. 
There were plans of mercy in store for the Gentiles, and 
we who now write, and you who now read, are a fulfilment 
of them. The system adopted in the case of the Gentile 
world was to let them alone, to let them try the experi- 
ment of working out their own salvation. As might have 
been expected, they failed j and so God's plan succeeded. 
God allowed the Gentiles to try what they could do to 
improve themselves. He let them try their own strength and 
wisdom, in order that experience might make them wiser 
and humbler. Striking out wildly, in the effort to know 
God, relying upon their own wisdom, the result was idol- 
atry. Downward was the tendency of the age. Specula- 
tive error fostered moral depravity; and finally, steeped in 
misery, sunk in hopeless darkness and degradation, the 
Gentile world awakes to the misery of its situation. It has 
proved the vanity of its wisdom, the^ weakness of its 
strength; it comes to itself, is humbled, and ready and 
willing to lay hold upon the hope offered in the gospel. 
Here, then, is the ''fulness of times" for the Gentile 
world. It is ready (made so by a stern course of disci- 
pline, by a self-made misery) for the Redeemer, and, there- 
fore, it was that the preaching of Christ and of Him cruci- 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 20/ 

fied proved so powerful, and was so successful. The Gen- 
tiles had practically proved the vanity of all human wis- 
dom, and could appreciate the '* foolishness of preaching." 
They had learned the misery of sin, and were only too 
anxious to be delivered from it. Thus it was that the 
preaching of a crucified Redeemer was hailed with such 
ecstasy throughout the Gentile world. 

The religious education of the Gentile world consisted, 
then, in this : Through the actual experience of the misery 
of sin, they were humbled and brought into a state of peni- 
tence ; being thus humbled, miserable, and confessedly 
helpless, they were prepared to welcome the preaching of 
a Divine Redeemer. Philosophy ! How long did those 
poor ancients fondly imagine that by it they could eman- 
cipate human nature. One after another system was tried 
and found a failure. Socrates, noblest of the ancients, he 
too fondly imagined that his philosophy would redeem 
mankind ; but it, too, failed ; until men finally fell back 
upon the infidelity of Epicureanism, thus confessing that 
there was no possible means of escape. Stoicism was in- 
deed a noble protest against vice, and a gallant attempt to 
meet and foil the powers of darkness. But it was too 
strong for man, few wills could carry out its doctrines. It 
could never be generally applied. It was, in fact, a peti- 
tio principii, taking it for granted that man was stronger 
than sin and Satan ; requiring the weak to be strong, 
whereas this is exactly the difficulty. And this is the bot- 
tom fallacy of all human philosophies, considered as means 
of salvation. They require, but do not give ; require mo- 
rality, but give no strength wherewith to perform it. It is . 
easy enough to know the good ; but how to perform, here 
lies the difficulty which the poet Ovid sees, when he says, 
^^ video 7neUoj'ia,proboquedeteriora sequor.''^ And again, 
Epictetus, ''He who errs, does not what he would, but 



208 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

does what he would not. ' ' Any form of philosophy which 
fails to give this power of performing is useless, and can- 
not deliver man from sin. Such, too, is the nature of all 
the forms of religion now prevalent, outside of Christen- 
dom.. They differ from the ancient philosophies in that in 
them there is added a theology ; but to know of God with- 
out something further is not enough, and does nothing for 
man. Confucius, for instance, the great Chinese teacher 
of morals and of etiquette, teaches a great deal of truth ; 
but does he make the morals of his countrymen any better ? 
He teaches the moral law, but he adds nothing to human 
nature ; he takes away none of its innate depravity and 
love of sin. So with Brahminism, Buddhism, Mohamme- 
danism, and all other forms of heathenism. Though they 
may have increased the human stock of theology, and en- 
larged the moral code, yet none of them can deliver man 
from going down into the pit. All of them can but sub- 
serve the same end that ancient polytheism did, narnely, 
prove the vanity of all human efforts towards salvation ; 
they are in the end in themselves impotent ; must bring 
man into such a state of misery and degradation that he will 
** come to himself," realize his desperate condition, and, like 
the Western world at the time of the coming of Christ, be 
eagerly anxious for the advent of a Redeemer. To every 
people there is an appointed *^ fulness of times" which 
will most inevitably come. The education of the Western 
world has to be repeated in each of these cases. The 
Hindoo, the Chinese, the Persian, the Mohammedan, the 
African, the whole heathen world has yet to be brought to 
a sense of its degradation, and of the vanity of its wisdom, 
before it will be ready for the Gospel of Christ. For many 
of these nations the ^' fulness of times " has not yet come. 
Still they hold on tenaciously to their ancient forms, trust- 
ing in them to deliver them ; their eyes are evidently not 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 2O9 

yet opened to the insufficiency of such means for salvation. 
The process of humbling through experience of the misery 
of sin, of making man teachable through experience of the 
vanity of his own wisdom — this process, as a system of re- 
ligious education, has in turn to be applied to every por- 
tion of the Gentile world. And not alone to them ; but 
also, as St. Paul tells us, to the Jewish section. They, too, 
now in these last times have, like the Gentiles, been con- 
cluded in unbelief that He might have mercy upon all. 

According to the Scriptures, positive religious instruction, 
up to the time of the calling of the Gentiles, was exclu- 
sively confined to the Jews. The ultimate end of this re- 
ligious instruction and discipline was the same as in the 
case of the Gentiles, only that end was approached from 
an opposite direction : the end in both cases being to 
demonstrate to man that he cannot deliver himself, to hum- 
ble him, and to make him look out of himself to God for 
salvation. The Gentiles, as we have seen, were brought 
historically to this condition by being allowed to plunge 
themselves into the abyss of ignorance and sin. It was 
actual misery that brought them to the knowledge of sin. 
The method in the case of the Jewish section of mankind 
is different. They are more and more enlightened as to 
the nature and character of the true God. The moral law 
is revealed to them so that they are amply informed as to 
their duty towards God and towards man. By these means, 
and by various other providential arrangements, the Jews 
were kept, with difficulty it must be confessed, from plung- 
ing into that abyss of darkness and vice in which all the 
heathen nations around them were swallowed up. The 
chief subject of instruction under the Jewish dispensation 
was the nature and character of God, and the feature in the 
Divine character most dwelt upon was his holiness. That 
''He was of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, that he 
18* O 



210 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

could not look upon evil." That in this respect, in rela- 
tion to evil, He is V' a consuming fire." This point was 
most expressly taught and developed under the Mosaic 
ceremonial ritual ; at the same time the tender aspects of 
the Divine character were expressly inculcated. Jehovah 
was a God, ''long-suffering and of great mercy," ''who 
repenteth Him of the evil. ' ' And these seemingly opposite 
aspects of the Divine character were brought into contact 
with each other, and yet reconciled, in the forgiveness of 
sins through sacrifice. The Mosaic ritual expressly taught 
that, " without shedding of blood there is no remission of 
sin." Thus, while God forgave. He at the same time in 
the sacrificial death of the substituted victim, clearly inti- 
mated that justice must be vindicated. Thus the Jew was 
taught that God was at the same time holy, just, and good, 
and that although he forgave, yet it was only through the 
shedding of blood. On the one side, then, under this sys- 
tem, we have the holiness, justice, and mercy of God, and 
a lofty moral standard as to the rule of duty ; on the other, 
poor, weak, sinful man. The holiness and strictness of 
God's law meant to bring out this contrast, and to make 
the Jew conscious of his true condition as a sinful man. 
He was to be humbled, made conscious of his insufficiency 
and of his guilt by contrast with those sublime objects of 
faith which were presented before him. He was to be 
humbled by the very inaccessibility of the height of holi- 
ness required of him. The law and the character of God, 
as revealed under the Jewish dispensation, has, as its spirit- 
ual object, the bringing man to the knowledge and con- 
sciousness of sin, both in its guilt and power; to bring 
what is hidden to light, that is before the consciousness, 
and thus to make the sinner of a broken and contrite heart, 
and one longing for Redemption. 

And here another feature in the Jewish economy is to be 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 211 

noticed, namely, ''the promise." This promise, the Scrip- 
tures inform us, was given to our first parents ; it belongs, 
therefore, to the whole family of man. In it, in brief, 
God promises to send a deliverer, who is to deliver man 
from that state of misery into which sin has plunged him. 
This promise is the very core of revelation. It lies in the 
centre of the Jewish dispensation ; and it was the office of 
prophecy to unfold and develop its meaning. 

In order that the blessings of this promise should be ad- 
ministered, a certain previous spiritual condition is re- 
quired. The promise relates exclusively to spiritual sub- 
jects, to sin, the fundamental cause of man's miserable 
condition. The state of sin is felt chiefly in guilt, ^d in 
sin as a power ; the consequences which it entails are death, 
subjection to the power of Satan, and, in general, all the 
misery that man is heir to. The Redeemer is then to de- 
liver man from sin in its guilt and power ; to ransom him 
from the power of Satan ; to check the entailed conse- 
quence of death and endless misery. To appreciate such 
a deliverance, man must in the first place become conscious 
of his situation, must feel his guilt, must be galled by his 
bondage to sin. Until the soul is brought into this con- 
dition, the promise will not be appreciated. How this was 
effected in the Gentile world we have seen. The Jewish 
dispensation aimed at producing the same result. By the 
law, St. Paul says, is the knowledge of sin. The honest 
mind in the presence of the Holy Jehovah and under the 
strict moral law, was necessarily reduced to an humble 
spiritual condition. The soul could not but feel that in 
many things it offended, and that the immaculate spotless- 
ness required by the law in order to righteousness before 
God was an impossibility. Therefore it must conclude 
that ''by the deeds of the law, no man living can be justi- 
fied." Thus attention was directed to the promise, faith 



212 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

fastened upon it ; hope found its anchor in the promised 
Redeemer. And thus justification by faith was a fact under 
the Old Testament, as thoroughly as under the New, and 
thus St. Paul argues in ''Galatians" and *^ Romans." 

The blessings offered in the promise being possible only 
to those who were in this humbled and consciously spirit- 
ually needy condition, any use of the then present sys- 
tem which prevented the presence of such a condition was 
out of harmony with the spirit of the dispensation. To 
adopt the law and the ritual as a means of obtaining justifi- 
cation before God, is to misunderstand the whole dispen- 
sation. The Jewish government was a theocracy ; trans- 
gression of the civil law was an offence against God. God 
extended pardon to many classes of such offences through 
the rite of sacrifice. The day of atonement purged the 
whole nation from such offences, and withheld punishment 
which had been deserved. The guilt, then, which was 
purged under the ritual, was not moral — that which rests 
in the conscience — but civil. Thus it was indicated '^ that 
without shedding of blood there is no remission," and in- 
asmuch as by such sacrifices something was really effected, 
civil guilt being in reality purged ; it was thus declared that 
the ultimate ^Sacrifice, of which these were only shadows 
and types, would, too, really effect something, only it 
would be a higher thing, namely, the purging of the con- 
science from dead works, or the taking away of moral 
guilt. Now, to take the moral law in its letter as the rule 
of duty, and the ritual as a means of attaining justification 
before God, would exactly defeat what the law, as a dis- 
pensation, intended to effect, namely, to bring man to a 
consciousness of his sinfulness and guilt. This is, however, 
exactly what the Jews did. Like the young ruler, the 
pious Jew could say of the commandments, ^' all these 
have I kept from my youth up, even until now ; what lack 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 213 

I yet?" But if there had been a law given which could 
have given life, " verily righteousness should have been by 
the law." But it never was intended to be thus attained. 
The law was ever but "a. schoolmaster," to lead the indi- 
vidual to the promise, and historically as a dispensation, to 
lead the nation up to Christ manifest in the flesh. It was 
the preparatory dispensation intended to educate the whole 
people, as a mass, up to the consciousness of sin, and so 
having created a want in the human consciousness to pre- 
pare it for the dispensation of a supply.' Here, then, the 
educational process has arrived at the same point in the 
Jewish as in the Gentile world. A sense of want has been 
developed in the soul. The process, though differently 
conducted in the two cases, has in the end brought the 
soul to practically the same condition. Such is the theory 
and the meaning of the Jewish dispensation. Although 
apparently in the end, it seems to have failed in realizing 
it. The time came when, historically, the system had 
reached its full development ; but the subjects to whom it 
properly applied, as a nation, failed to profit by it. 

Alongside of this system for the development of the in- 
dividual moral consciousness, we find a parallel develop- 
ment of the meaning of the promise. Gradually the na- 
ture of that which was promised is brought to light, and 
under clearer figures, the nature and work of the coming 
Redeemer is indicated ; so that while on the one hand the 
subjective consciousness is developed, on the other hand 
the objective to which faith attaches itself, is also more 
clearly defined. There were those at the coming of Christ 
actually waiting for the blessing promised Abraham. There 
were those whose condition was in exact harmony with 
their position in the historic development of this divine 
system of education ; whose subjective state was that of 
those who longed for deliverance; whose faith, well in- 



214 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

formed, knew that the Redeemer was already at hand ; 
whose hearts, therefore, beat wildly when that cry of the 
Baptist was heard in the wilderness, saying, " Repent ye, 
for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Such men were 
in harmony with the dispensation under which they were 
living, and naturally passed out of Judaism into Christian- 
ity. In fact, they were always Christians, inasmuch as 
their faith had always fastened itself, not upon the right- 
eousness of the law, but upon the Gospel promise. With 
such Jews the preparatory education had proved a success ; 
they were prepared for the ensuing dispensation. But with 
the mass of the Jewish people the case was otherwise. The 
Scribes and Pharisees had so long taught that righteousness 
came by the law ; that punctilious performance of moral 
and ceremonial duties justified ; that thus, finally, Judaism 
was generally understood. They had so long interpreted 
the promise as referring to temporalities, regarding the 
Redeemer as a conquering hero ; so long had religion been 
considered as consisting in formalism and moderate moral- 
ity ; so long had religion been thus taught and received, 
that they were utterly incapable of taking any other view 
of the subject — were sealed up in unbelief; therefore 
they cast out the true spiritual teacher and Redeemer when 
He came, and slew Him. Thus the time had arrived when 
they themselves must be cast out ; to be treated as the Gen- 
tiles had hitherto been ; cut loose from the covenant, and 
cast out to depend on their own resources, in working out 
their own salvation. God cut them loose from Himself, 
and has for a time cast them adrift upon the wild sea of 
unbelief. '^ He has concluded them all in unbelief that in 
the end He might have mercy upon all." 

The educational system as applied to this favored people 
has now changed. They are not utterly cast off, as St. 
Paul tells us ; but having failed to profit by their own, and 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 21$ 

to enter into the present system, they have, as a punish- 
ment, been thrown back upon themselves, that finally, like 
the Gentiles, they may learn that salvation is not of man, 
but of God. They have been broken off because of un- 
belief, and they, *' if they abide not still in unbelief," says 
the same apostle, *' shall be graffed in again." ''For I 
would not, brethren, that ye be ignorant of this mystery, 
lest ye be wise in your own conceits, that blindness in part 
is happened to Israel until the fulness of the Gentiles be 
come in." 

God's system of religious education, as applied, works 
thus : He leaves men to themselves until, plunged in dark- 
ness and misery, they cry out for deliverance. Then the 
time has come, the Gospel is published, and ''as many as 
are ordained to eternal life believe," and are saved. As 
applied to the Jews, they were instructed in theology, and 
were supplied with instruction and a discipline adapted to 
bring them into that experience peculiar to the members 
of the kingdom. Some all along profited by this disci- 
pline, and partook of the blessings of the promise ; others 
all along mistook the object of this discipline, and sought 
justification by the works of the law. Finally, when this 
preparatory dispensation had come to an end, the nation, 
misunderstanding it, in unbelief, held to it as the way of 
obtaining righteousness before God. "They had a zeal 
of God, but not according to knowledge; for they, being 
ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to estab- 
lish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves 
to the righteousness which is of God. For Christ is the 
end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." 
Thus the Jew has fallen back upon the Gentile system, that 
through it they may finally, as a people, be brought up to 
accept the righteousness of faith. What may be in store 
for this race before they are brought to this, who can tell ? 



2l6 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

Absolute infidelity most probably is the destiny in store for 
them. This probably is the form which sin will assume in 
a people placed in such circumstances. At any rate, they 
are not cut oif finally, but, like all the Gentiles without the 
covenant, must for the present depend upon themselves. 
God is determined that they shall learn a lesson and be 
humbled ; to do them good in the latter end, and so, 
finally, all Israel shall be saved. 

The Christian Church now occupies the position which 
the Jewish Church once did, and, like that body, is liable to 
misunderstanding its position, and the meaning of the dis- 
pensation under which it is placed. The Jewish Church, 
misunderstanding the end of the law, used it in its moral 
and ceremonial aspects, for the purpose of obtaining right- 
eousness before God. They thought that, by a punctilious 
observance of all its statutes and ordinances, they attained 
a complete righteousness, and were then accepted of God. 
Thus the young ruler, thus St. Paul before his conversion, 
and the Scribes and Pharisees generally, believed and acted. 
The Christian Church can make the same mistake. It can 
take the moral law as propounded by Christ, and the cere- 
monial, as established by Him and His disciples, and make 
them its righteousness ; can so misunderstand the Christian 
dispensation, that it may conceive that morality and formal- 
ism is true righteousness, and renders man acceptable be- 
fore God. And this is exactly what a great portion of the 
Christian Church actually does ; one vast section of it, the 
Roman Catholic, has already actually done this. Another, 
regarding Christ as a mere teacher of morals, lays it down 
as truth that morality is Christianity; here we have Unitari- 
anism and Socinianism. Another section adds to morality 
a ritual, — Baptism and the Lord's Supper taking the place 
of sacrifice under the old Covenant ; this gives us ritualism 
and its milder form, formalism, which correspond on the 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 21/ 

one hand with Romanism, and the other with Phariseeism, 
its Jewish ancestor. The ritualistic moralist, just as the 
Pharisees of old, imagines that he is clothed with righteous- 
ness, and that he is justified by these works of his ; both 
totally misunderstand the economy under which they are 
placed; they forget that it is written, an eternal truth for 
man, that **the just shall live by faith." Thus it is clearly 
possible that the Christian Church that now is, like the 
Jewish that was, may through unbelief fall from its cove- 
nant position, and back upon its old Gentile, or perhaps 
upon the present Jewish position; hence the warning of 
St. Paul. **They," he says, the Jews, ''were broken off 
because of unbelief," **and thou that standest by faith be 
not high-minded, but fear. For if God spared not the 
natural branches, take heed lest He spare not thee." 

In the Christian Church, upon the individual, both forms 
of education are employed. Some approach Christ from 
the ancient Jewish standpoint, others from the Gentile. 
Those who are brought up and grow up from their youth 
in piety, approach Christ from the Jewish or legal stand- 
point; and if they make an entrance into the kingdom, 
must do so by first proving to themselves, through a course 
of earnest obedience, the inadequacy of all human efforts ; 
of all forms and ordinances to justify and to give peace to 
the conscience. They must learn that man is powerless in 
himself to resist sin, and must thus be brought to Christ for 
both justification and sanctification. If they stop short of 
Christ as the only ground of hope and of strength, they 
are without the kingdom, and relying upon the righteous- 
ness of works. 

Others approach Christ from the Gentile standpoint; 

having plunged themselves into the abyss of sin, they have 

experienced its folly and its misery. From this dreadful 

condition they are rescued by faith in the Gospel of Jesus 

19 



2l8 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

Christ, and now He is all their strength and hope ; they 
know what they had brought themselves to ; they know 
who has brought them to where they now stand, and from 
the depths of the soul can say, '^ By the grace of God I am 
what I am." 

Such, in brief, is the outline of that scheme of religious 
education which God has planned for man's salvation, 
both in its historic development and in its personal applica- 
tion to the individual. Such is the scheme opened to us 
in the Scriptures, and known as Redemption. The Scrip- 
tures give us the elements of instruction, the discipline 
employed, and an historic account of the practical working 
of the system. They present us with a method whereby 
man is brought to know God and to know himself; hereby 
his own subjective condition is made to stand out before 
the consciousness ; he is thus brought practically to know 
himself, the sense of his necessitous condition is made to 
press upon him ; and then, in the Revelation of Christ in 
the Gospel, his wants are, through faith, met and fully sup- 
plied. Thus the Scriptures have been, and must always 
be, the means, whereby man is to be saved. They have 
always been the instrumentality by means of which God 
has wrought the salvation of men. Man in his natural 
state is without true self-knowledge. Even when deeply 
sunk in the misery of sin, still he cannot understand it, he 
knows not what it is that has brought him to so desperate 
a condition ; afloat on a stream whose banks are too dis- 
tant to be seen, he knows not from whence or whither he 
is drifting. All are involved in this current of sin ; there 
are no landmarks to point out how we are drifting. The 
Scriptures give us such landmarks ; they give us, in the first 
place, the historical account of sin, and then, by means 
of the Revelation of the character of God and of His law, 
we are enabled to come to a practical consciousness of our 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 2I9 

present internal condition. By comparing ourselves with 
God's character we learn our own ; finding that it is very- 
far departed from that of Him in whose image we were 
originally created. By comparing our conduct with the 
requirements of His law, we soon find that we are far distant 
from the righteousness of that law — that we are guilty, 
sinful creatures. We find that even when we would do 
good, evil is present with us ; we find that the good that 
we would we do not, but the evil which we would not 
that we do ; we find, therefore, that we are in bondage, 
sold under sin. Such is the state of things which the law, 
when regarded and honestly used as a rule of conduct, re- 
veals to us as existing within. The law, then, when used, 
is the instrument for exciting a self-revelation. By it is the 
conscious knowledge of sin, both as to its guilt and power. 
Historically, the Scriptures tell us the same thing. '^By 
one man," we read, **sin entered into the world, and 
death by sin ; " and in the Book of Genesis we have pre- 
sented to us the account of this sad transaction; Thus, 
both historically and experimentally, the Scriptures be- 
come the means of opening to us the condition in which 
we are, and the relation in which we stand as sinners with 
respect to a Holy God. By this instrumentality man ar- 
rives at a true self-knowledge, and at a true knowledge of 
God in His relation to us. The soul sees everything in a 
new light, its eyes are open now for the first time to the 
truth ; '' whereas it was blind (self-deceived), now it sees." 
Consciousness of guilt and of the miserable bondage under 
which the soul is to sin, makes it cry out for help, and in 
its extremity it turns to God. Here, then, we are met by 
the revelation of the Gospel. In it Christ is offered to the 
heavy-laden soul as a Saviour from both guilt and the 
power of sin and the devil. Faith at once accepts the 
offer; Christ as the bread of life is eaten; His flesh and 



220 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

blood, as offered for the life of the world, become the life 
of the guilty; His flesh is bread indeed, and the words 
which He speaks are felt to be spirit and life. His spirit 
by faith becomes the sinner's strength, and thus by faith, 
man, a sinner, is saved ; he has eternal life abiding in him. 

Christianity, from the very beginning, has had to sus- 
tain itself against a very heavy pressure. Essentially, in 
the individual and in the race, it is a conflict, a struggle 
against the powers of the world, the flesh, and the devil. 
In one sense it means peace, in another it means war. " I 
came not to send peace," says its great Captain, *'but a. 
sword." This was only to be expected. '*I will put en- 
mity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed 
and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt 
bruise his heel." Here is Christianity at its very birth ; a 
new power is ushered into the world, under God's own 
hand and seal, ratified in the rite of sacrifice. Evil is to 
have an antagonist in this world ; two hosts are to contend 
against each other, under the banners of good and evil, 
under two distinct leaders. Christianity, then, from the very 
outset, proclaims itself a combatant ; and to the end, in the 
individual experience, and in that of the race in its historic 
development, we must expect to meet the same spectacle. 

The positions, around which and for which the struggle 
is waged, are continually shifting. Every age has its posi- 
tion to maintain. The position which we, of this age, 
are called upon to maintain, is the divine authority of 
the Holy Scriptures, especially that of the Old Testament. 
Every thinking man, in his own private experience, has 
now to fight a battle. No one, who is informed as to the 
scientific discoveries of the age, can fail to be affected 
more or less by them ; he cannot but feel that the founda- 
tions which hitherto existed within him are being shaken, 
perhaps broken up, and in the uncertainty which under 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 221 

such circumstances ensues, lie finds himself casting about 
to find some method by which to reconcile the conflicting 
facts of science and revelation, and thus get a new basis to 
rest upon. Science for example has, it is claimed, clearly- 
made it out that man has existed upon this earth for more 
than six thousand years. Such a statement is in conflict 
with what we have hitherto believed; that belief being 
grounded on the Biblical account. The Bible gives us an 
account of the creation, and then it gives us, as we thought, 
an uninterrupted genealogical line, down to well-known 
historic times. It gives us the exact number of years that 
elapsed between the Creation and the Deluge ; giving us 
the length of each generation from Adam, through Seth, 
to Noah ; from Noah it gives us a genealogical line through 
Shem down to Abraham ; and through Abraham to 
know* historic times. We had, up to this time, always 
supposed that here we had the real account of the creation 
of the world, and of the development of the human race, 
of the age of the world and of the race. But science shows 
satisfactorily, it is said, that this is all a mistake ; that man 
has existed on the earth myriads of years, that in all prob- 
ability the human race is not one family, not from one 
parent ; but that it is diverse in its constitution and ori- 
gin, springing from various centres. How, then, stands 
the case ? To minds that are satisfied as to the truth of 
the facts of science, it is evident, either they must misin- 
terpret the Scriptures, or they are untrue. To the minds 
which are not satisfied as to these facts of science, they are 
simply in a state of doubt ; their faith has been unsettled ; 
they are waiting for something further to develop itself, 
and they eagerly grasp at all the theories which are foisted 
upon them, holding to one after another, as they are suc- 
cessively exploded ; uncertain as to everything, certain as 
to nothing ; altogether they are in a painful state of doubt. 
19^ 



222 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

Those who are satisfied" as to the facts of science, feeling 
that, with the present interpretation of Scripture, its account 
of the creation, and the account which science gives of 
it, are inevitably at variance, betake themselves to a re- 
examination of the Scripture, and begin to distort plain 
language, and fo theorize. 

The Mosaic account of the creation of the world and of 
man, is as clear and explicit as anything can well be, so 
much so that a child can understand it. God made the 
world, including man, in six days, and rested the seventh 
day. This is the plain statement made in the Scriptures. 
Now, as to the theory of periods, instead of days, is it ten- 
able? Clearly, Moses, or whoever wrote this account, 
evidently meant to convey to his reader the impression 
that in six natural days the world was created; or why 
say, ^'the evening and the morning was the first 'day.'* 
And if this is written by inspiration, clearly God intended 
that such should be the impression conveyed. This 
account, be it remembered, was first given for the informa- 
tion of the Hebrews, and certainly they have always un- 
derstood it according to the plain letter. **The evening 
and the morning was the first day," it is written. No 
matter about there being no sun, as some would argue, and 
that, therefore, there could be no evening and morning. 
After all, this is nothing but hypothesis; no one knows 
how it was then. Light appears to have been the first 
thing distinctly created ; and then it is written, the even- 
ing and the morning was the first day. That God intended 
this plain meaning to be attached to this account, is proved 
by its repetition in the Fourth Commandment. The Jews 
are to keep the seventh day, because God did. This, be 
it remembered, was delivered by God himself from Sinai, 
in the hearing of the people ; this, then, is not Moses, but 
God himself speaking, and He says of himself, *' For in 



WHAT JS RELIGION? 223 

six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all 
that in them is, and rested the seventh day and hallowed 
it; " here, then, is a plain statement made by God himself. 
If He had intended periods, surely this language would have 
been a mere play upon words. Nor did the Jews under- 
stand it so; they evidently understood God to say that, 
inasmuch as He had rested on the seventh day and hal- 
lowed it, they must do likewise. This, then, we say is the 
plain Scriptural statement ; the Scriptures are committed 
to it, namely, that in six days, each of an evening and 
morning, ^' the Lord made heaven and earth, and the sea, , 
and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day. ' ' 

This same rule is to be applied to all the other points of 
the Scriptural account of this primal epoch ; to the crea- 
tion of Adam and Eve ; to the disobedience and fall of 
man ; to the antiquity of man, &c. 

And then, as to the Deluge ; there can be no doubt about 
it, that the writer of that account means to say that the 
Deluge was universal ; he is at the greatest pains to impress 
this fact upon us. Every honest candid mind cannot but 
feel that this is so, and all twisting and distorting of the 
plain Scriptural statement, to accommodate it with the facts 
of science, is folly, it only does harm. No j let the Scrip- 
tures take care of themselves; what they say, they say 
clearly ; if science and they are at issue, well, let them be, 
thus only will we ever meef the difficulty fairly and squarely, 
and settle It. The Scriptures need no scientific glosses, 
they can afford to stand by themselves. The Bible is then 
committed to the six days cosmogony, to the unity of the 
human race, and its non-antiquity, to the fall of man, and 
the universality of the Deluge. Directly in the teetlj of the 
'' development hypothesis," it asserts that man was origi- 
nally formed in the image of God ; that, instead^ of pro- 
gress, we have before us degradation and retrogression. The 



224 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

Bible and science, any candid mind must see, are now 
almost at every point directly in conflict. 

In contradistinction to all those theories, which would 
by a series of glosses distort and contort the plain state- 
ments of Scripture, in the vain effort to make them con- 
form to the alleged facts of science, which would con- 
struct out of this simple account a geological and ethno- 
logical scientific system; — in contradistinction to all such 
theories, we hold that this simple account is to be honestly 
dealt with ; that we are to interpret it according to the 
plain signification which it bears on its face ; that in it will 
be found, in the end, all the essential elements of truth. 
Thus, should we ever attain to a thorough knowledge of 
creation, it will be found that the statement here made in 
Genesis, is as adequate a one as any that could be framed ; 
that in fact it is a formula for the creation. As to the 
unity of the race, there is no possible ambiguity in that 
statement, and in the end this will be found the true 
account of man's origin. As to the fall, this too is clearly 
stated, and in the end will be found a formula for the en- 
trance of evil into the world. And as to the Deluge, there 
can be no doubt but that the writer believed, and that he 
intended to say that it was universal. Here too in the end 
we will find a formula for a catastrophe which overtook the 
world and swept from it all life, except that specially pre- 
served in the Ark. The Deluge is evidently an epoch in 
the history of the world, and according to Scripture it was 
universal. The peopling of the world, as we find it now, 
is subsequent to the Deluge. '' These are the three sons of 
Noah, and of them was the whole earth overspread." 
Shem, Ham, and Japhet are the sources of the diversity 
of the race as we now find it. And the problem of bar- 
barous Africa will finally, too, find its solution, in the curse 
of Ham, or Canaan. 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 225 

And now, lastly, as to time. Is the human race but six 
thousand years old? Here, as in other cases, the Scriptural 
account is so clear and explicit that there is no possibility 
of mistaking the meaning of it. The line of descent from 
Adam to Noah, through Seth, is expressly given j the length 
of each generation is expressly stated ; so that the number 
of years elapsing between Adam and the Deluge can be 
ascertained by the simplest calculation. The only mistake 
possible, is, as to the numbers, and this only because of the 
liability to error in transcribing and in translating. But this, 
seeing we have the individuals, and inasmuch as they are 
so few, would after all be but a trifling error. Again, with 
the exception of the length of the generations, we have 
the same accuracy in a genealogical line extending from 
Noah, through Shem, to Abraham and the patriarchs. More- 
over, this genealogical line is found again in Chronicles, and 
adopted and ratified by St. Luke in his Gospel ; so that it must 
be considered an essential part of Revelation. Revelation, 
therefore, stands committed to only two thousand years, or 
thereabout, between the Creation and the Deluge, making 
the world and man, from its recorded creation, only about 
six thousand years old. This is man's antiquity, then, ac- 
cording to the Scriptures. 

This, then, is the position in which every candid mind 
and honest believer in revelation now finds himself placed. 
The Holy Scriptures inform us that the world was created 
in six natural days ; that the human race has its origin in 
one pair of ancestors ; that they sinned and fell ; that the 
Deluge was universal, destroying every living being except 
Noah, his family, and what was contained in the Ark. 
Moreover, from the genealogies given, man is but six 
thousand years old. Such are clearly the facts according 
to the Scriptures. Opposite to these statements, what do 
we find ? — the facts according to science. Geology proves 

P 



226 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

irrefragably, it is claimed, that the world was myriads of 
years in being brought into its present condition. . Geol- 
ogy, biology, and their cognate sciences, prove, it is said 
satisfactorily, the indefinite antiquity of man. Moreover, 
it appears, according to science, that the human race is not 
a unit, but has divers origins, having various centres. And 
again, under the light of science, the universality of the 
Deluge is regarded as unreasonable, and as highly improb- 
able. How, then, is the candid mind to bear itself in the 
midst of such conflicting statements ? We find ourselves, 
then, between two conflicting sets of statements. They 
are contradictory the one to the other; both, therefore, 
cannot be true. Which are we to stand by? Take, for 
instance, the Deluge, one of the clearest cases. Revela- 
tion declares, over and over again, that it was universal. 
Clearly this is stated. Gen. vi. 17 : ^' And behold, I, even 
I do bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all 
flesh wherein is the breath of life from under heaven ; and 
everything that is in the earth shall die; " and again, ''All 
flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl and cat- 
tle, and of beast and of every creeping thing that' creepeth 
upon the earth, and every man. ' ' Note that every man, 
" all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was 
in the dry land died." No assertion can be clearer and 
more explicit than this — nothing more sweeping in its dic- 
tion. Evidently the author of this account meant to state 
that the Deluge was universal, and that it put an end to all 
animal life that moved upon the face of the earth, except 
of that in the Ark. Scientists deny this fact, and tell us 
that science will not admit of it. Now, either the Deluge 
was universal, or it was not. If it was not, then the Scien- 
tist is right, and Revelation wrong. The account, therefore, 
is false. Can we admit this? It is vain to try to contort 
this language so as to accommodate it to the alleged neces- 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 22/ 

sities of science. And, after all, it is perfectly useless ; for 
no doubt any partial deluge would be regarded just as im- 
probable. No j there is no escaping the dilemma : either 
the Deluge was universal, destroying man and all terrestrial 
animal life, or the Scriptural account is false. 

This same process can be applied to each of the other 
points under dispute : the creation, the unity of the race, its 
antiquity, and fall. The day has come when these issues 
must be met and tried by each man, in his own mind ; and 
accordingly as he decides, he must range himself on the one 
side or on the other. The question of the six days can be 
postponed for the present by means of the doctrine of the 
periods. Geology will have to progress further before the 
issue will be again formally made. The question of the 
imity of the race is now in court ; that of the fall — though, 
as one would think, sadly verified in every one's own ex- 
perience, and by the history of the race — yet even that 
is questioned, and the theory of the development hypoth- 
esis is in direct antagonism with it. The question of the 
Deluge seems to have been very generally decided against 
Revelation ; and that of the antiquity of man is now in pro- 
cess of trial ; the evidence collected so far, tending, in the 
judgment of many, strongly to uproot our former opinions 
on this subject. All the theories for the reconciliation 
of the Scriptural account with that of science have so far 
proved failures. No one can be satisfied with them. The 
language of Scripture is so simple and clear that all efforts 
to distort and to accommodate it, by means of unwarrant- 
able glosses, with the alleged facts of science, only serve 
to disgust the candid mind, and to bring down the ridicule 
and contempt of the scientist. The question cannot be 
settled thus. It must be fairly stated and encountered. 
We must boldly take our stand, and insist upon it that 
the Scriptural account is essentially true, or we must aban- 



228 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

don it altogether and declare it openly to be untrue and 
false. 

*'The question of the antiquity of the human race, like 
that of all animal life, is a question of biology ; and biol- 
ogy derives all its data, as to time, from geology." Thus 
Professor Huxley writes. *^But it maybe said that it is 
biology, and not geology, which asks for so much time — 
that the succession of life demands vast intervals; but this 
appears to me to be reasoning in a circle. Biology takes 
her time from geology. The only reason we have for be- 
lieving in the slow rate of the change in living forms, is the 
fact that they persist, through a series of deposits, which 
geology informs us have taken a long while to make. If 
the geological clock is wrong, all the naturalist will have to 
do, is to modify his notions of the rapidity of change ac- 
cordingly." 

Geology, then, is responsible for all the discredit that 
has been thrown by science upon the Bible account of the 
origin of things. It is with this science that the Theologian 
is at issue. To begin, then, we impugn the fundamental 
dictum of this science. The principle which underlies all 
geological speculation with respect to the past, or the future, 
is, if we take revelation as our guide, false. The principle 
to which we refer is this, namely, that the present processes 
which we observe in nature are those which have always 
been ; that we are authorized, nay, compelled to conclude 
that the processes of nature have always gone on just as we 
observe them now, and that therefore the experience of 
the present is a revelation of the past, and, according to 
some theories, a prophecy of the future. Thus Professor 
Huxley: ''I presume that 100,000 feet maybe taken as 
a full allowance for the total thickness of stratified rocks, 
containing traces of life ; 100,000 divided by 100,000,000 
= o.ooi. Consequently, the deposit of 100,000,000 years 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 229 

means, that the deposit has taken place at the rate of 

Tuoo ^^ ^ ^°°^> ^^ ^^y W3 ^^ ^^ i^^^ P^^ annum. Well, 
I do not know that any one is prepared to maintain that, 
even making all needful allowances, the stratified rocks 
may not have been formed, on the average, at the rate 
of ^\ of an inch per annum. I suppose that if such could 
be shown to be the limit of the world growth, we could 
put up with the allowance without feeling that our specu- 
lations had undergone any revolution. And perhaps, 
after all, the qualifying phrase, *some such period,' may 
not necessitate the assumption of more than y^g, or ^^-g, or 
■^l^ of an inch of deposit per year, which, of course, would 
give us still more ease and comfort." Because, from pres- 
ent observation, it is quite plausible to suppose that qL or 
y|g of an inch of rock might be annually deposited, it is 
argued that the whole deposit took such a number of years, 
a mere sum in division : this gives us, according to this 
assumption, the antiquity of the stratified rocks, and so the 
age of this globe as habitable. But have we a right to take 
for granted such an uniformity in the processes of natiure ? 
Why may not the whole, one hundred thousand feet of 
stratified rock, have come into existence at once? To 
suppose such an uniformity is a mere begging the question, 
and assuming a position exactly in opposition to the teach- 
ing of Revelation. 

There are three schools of geological speculation, we are 
told — catastrophism, uniformitarianism, and evolutionism. 
^' Catastrophism," says Professor Huxley, '^is the doctrine 
of a past era in geological inquiry ; uniformitarianism, that 
of the present ; while evolutionism has the honor of being 
that of the future." He himself is an advocate of the last. 
The first, the catastrophic, is the only theory that will at 
all admit the credibility of the cosmogony of Revelation. 
**The doctrine of violent upheavals of mountains, of sud- 
20 



230 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

den depressions of continents, of universal cataclysms, and 
the like, is catastrophic, insomuch that it assumes that the 
forces by which they were brought about were more in- 
tense than, or different from, any of those which we now 
experience." And then we are informed that the Hindoo, 
the Egyptian, and the Mosaic cosmogonies may be quoted 
as examples, as well as that of the Stoics. 

The Bible cosmogony, it will be seen, is classified under 
this theory, and it is the only theory that will admit of any 
possibility of its being true. But this school, we are told, 
belongs to the past ; it has been exploded and abandoned, 
and uniformitarianism has taken its place. ^' Catastro- 
phism," says Professor Huxley, '' has insisted upon the ex- 
istence of a practically unlimited bank of force, on which 
the theorist might draw. Uniformitarianism, on the other 
hand, has with equal justice insisted upon a practically 
unlimited bank of time, ready to discount any quantity of 
hypothetical paper." 

This theory grounds itself upon the principle we have 
assailed as being false ; it begs the whole question, and 
assumes that exactly what we see occurring now, has always 
thus occurred ; that the processes of nature are the same 
yesterday, to-day, and forever. According to this theory, 
*'all the phenomena in the past history of the earth are 
ascribed to forces identical in nature with, and not more 
energetic than those now active on the face of the earth. 
From this point of view, the forces that are now bringing 
about changes are so gradual that they almost escape ob- 
servation, are adequate to produce the most stupendous 
geological results, in unlimited time. Things have re- 
mained in the remote past, very much as we have known 
them during the last two or three thousand years, and the 
equilibrium of nature has not been destroyed, although 
local changes have taken place. According to Hutton, 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 23I 

there is no physical evidence of a beginning, no prospect 
of an end ; and in this he is followed by the great apostle 
of the uniformitarian school, Sir Charles Lyell." ^' For 
this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God 
the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the 
water, and in the water : whereby the world that then was, 
being overflowed with water, perished. But the heavens 
and the earth which are now,*by the same word are kept in 
store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and 
perdition of ungodly men." 2 Peter iii. 5-7. Evidently, 
uniformitarianism is not the doctrine of the Scriptures ; nor 
do we see what right it has to assume that *' the forces pro- 
ductive of the phenomena of the past are identical, and 
not more energetic than those now active on the face of the 
earth." Evidently, the advocates of such a theory must 
disallow the existence of miraculous phenomena ; the fun- 
damental principle being that the present is the exponent 
of the past ; since present observation and experience fail to 
give us miracles as phenomena of nature, necessarily we 
must conclude that they never were. This is but a return 
upon us of the skepticism of Hume, only coming under 
another form. Hume argued that miracles were incredi- 
ble, because they contradicted our experience. Evidently 
he adopts the dictum of uniformitarianism, that the pres- 
ent order of things is also that of the past, and that there- 
fore no testimony can convince the mind of the reality of 
miracles. Supposing that this is the truth ; supposing that 
we are to judge of the past, nay, must judge of it by the 
present, of course, then, miracles are incredible, and as 
facts, non-existent ; and the Bible, with its long list of mi- 
raculous events, is untrue and but a fable. 

If we draw our conclusions from the Scriptures, our 
fundamental formula will be directly in conflict with that 
of uniformitarianism. According to the Scriptures, the 



232 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

processes of ancient times were very different from those 
of the present. Beginning with the creation, we have a 
series of events such as the experience of the present never 
would teach us to expect. The state of things described 
in the Scriptures is entirely different from what we now 
find them. The economy of the world, it would appear, 
has undergone a change. God no longer does wonders 
and signs in the sight of mo]1:als. We have no Sodom and 
Gomorrah scenes now; no Mount Sinai terrors; no an- 
gelic appearances ; no plagues of Egypt ; no dividing of 
seas for nations to pass over ; no voice from heaven now 
speaks to men in tones of thunder ; no deluge has since 
that great one, swept over the earth. The sun and moon, 
never now, as in the days of Joshua, stand still ; nor does 
the sun now go backward, as on the dial of Ahaz. Nor 
are even lesser wonders now witnessed ; no blind are now 
made miraculously to see ; no lame to walk, deaf to hear, 
and dead to be raised. All those signs and wonders which 
sometimes astonished, sometimes alarmed men, have long 
ago ceased, and we have nothing now to remind us that 
there is a God, save the ''still small voice " of the spirit, and 
the internal miracle of regeneration. The economy has 
changed, and there has consequently come upon us the 
sign spoken of by the Apostle Peter: ''There shall come in 
the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and 
saying. Where is the promise of His coming ? for since the 
fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from 
the beginning of the creation. ' ' And this change of Divine 
operation applies to the physical as thoroughly as to the 
moral. 

We cannot but conclude then, that, according to the 
Scriptures, so far from the present being an exponent of 
the past, it is on the contrary entirely different from it ; we 
cannot then argue from the one to the other. We cannot 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 233 

argue that because now J3 of an inch of rock may be de- 
posited annually, therefore the inhabitable world is so many 
years old. We cannot thus reduce the antiquity of the 
world to a mere sum in long division. For all that we 
know from observation, and such appears to have been 
actually the case, the world may have been created all at 
once, in six days ; man was created at once in his maturity, 
by the creative fiat of an Almighty Word ; and the Scrip- 
tures seem to teach the same doctrine as to the creation of 
the physical world. God said, ''Let there be light," and 
at once there was light ; and the same of all other things. 
Because we now see man growing from infancy into man- 
hood, because such is our present experience of the origin 
and development of human nature, is this any reason why 
we should be compelled to conclude that man was not, in 
the first place, created in maturity ? And just so there is 
no reason why we may not conclude that this world was 
not ushered into existence, by the creative fiat, complete 
in structure. Experience of the present, in opposition to 
the dictum of uniformitarianism, is no guide as to the past. 
Evolutionism, the third scheme of geological speculation, 
is not much more satisfactory than uniformitarianism; like 
the latter, it reasons from the present to the past. " In 
common with Lyell and Hutter," Kant, who is regarded 
by Professor Huxley as the founder of this school, '' argues 
from the present order of things to the past, using, so far 
as the knowledge of his day would allow, uniformitarian 
doctrine." ''With as much truth as Hutton, Kant could 
say," writes Professor Huxley, " I take things just as I find 
them at present, and from these reason with regard to that 
which must have been." "Like Hutton, he is never tired 
of pointing out that in nature there is wisdom, system, and 
constancy." The same principle then underlies evolution- 
ism as uniformitarianism. The difference between them 
20* 



234 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

lies in this, that uniformitarianism knows no beginning 
nor end, whereas evolutionism pretends to give us both. 
*'Kant (writes Professor Huxley) expounds a complete 
cosmogony in the shape of a theory of the causes which 
have led to the development of the universe from diffused 
atoms of matter endowed with simple attractive and repul- 
sive forces." ''Give me matter," says Kant, ''and I will 
build the world." "And he proceeds to deduce from the 
simple data from which he starts, a doctrine in all essential 
respects similar to the well-known ' Nebular Hypothesis ' 
of Laplace. He accounts for the relation of the masses 
and densities of the planets to their distances from the sun, 
for the eccentricities of their orbits, for their rotations, for 
their satellites, for the general agreement in the direction 
of rotation among the celestial bodies, for Saturn's ring, 
and for the zodiacal light. He finds in each system of 
worlds indications that the attractive force of the central 
mass will eventually destroy its organization by concen- 
trating upon itself the matter of the whole system; but, as 
the result of this concentration, he argues for the develop- 
ment of an amount of heat which will dissipate the mass 
once more into a molecular chaos such as that in which it 
began. Kant pictures to himself the universe as once an 
infinite expansion of formless and diffused matter. At one 
point of this he supposes a single centre of attraction, set 
up, and, by strict deductions from admitted dynamical prin- 
ciples, shows how this must result in the development of a 
prodigious central body, surrounded by systems of solar 
and planetary worlds in all stages of development. In 
vivid language he depicts the great world maelstrom widen- 
ing the margins of its prodigious eddy, in the slow progress 
of millions of ages gradually reclaiming more and more of 
the molecular waste, and converting chaos into cosmos. 
But what is gained at the margin is lost in the centre ; the 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 235 

attractions of the central systems bring their constituents 
together, which then, by the heat evolved, are converted 
once more into molecular chaos. Thus the worlds that 
are, lie between the ruins of the worlds that have been and 
the chaotic materials of the worlds that shall be, and in 
spite of all waste and destruction, cosmos is extending his 
borders at the expense of chaos." 

Evolutionism applied to biology gives us Darwin's theory 
of the origin of the species, or the development hypothesis. 
This, taken in conjunction with the "nebular hypothesis," 
as expounded by Kant, gives us what professes to be a 
philosophical account of all the complex phenomena of the 
world. This, then, is the philosophical account of the 
origin of things, and a theory of the universe, and com- 
petes with the Scriptures for the faith of mankind. The 
lines are drawn : we must range ourselves on the one side 
or the other. Evolutionism is as far from the Scriptural 
account of the origin of things as is uniformitarianism. It 
adopts the fundamental principle of the latter, that the 
present order of things is the same as that of the past; it 
adds a theory for the beginning and the end, and so the 
circle is completed. It requires no God; a speculation 
which begins in Pantheism, and which must inevitably end 
in Atheism. 

We have seen that biology is entirely dependent upon 
geology for its data with respect to dates ; and geology, in 
its turn, so far as it undertakes to speculate with respect to 
the past, is for its dates dependent upon the principle that 
the present is the interpreter or exponent of the past. 
Catastrophism, as a theory of speculative geology, in its 
account of the past, is the only geological theory which is 
not necessarily in conflict with the Biblical account of the 
past ; but this theory, as we have seen, is now abandoned. 

Putting aside the question of dates, the scientific version 



236 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

of the origin and development of the human race amounts 
to this. The Development Hypothesis of Darwin (though 
some would appear to deny that man is a descendant of 
the ape) has been practically adopted. Man is supposed 
to be in his origin little better than a wild animal, living 
like a beast of prey in dens and caves, his only weapon of 
defenQe a rude club or a piece of rock ; his whole life con- 
sisting in a struggle with the wild beasts of the forest for 
food. This is called the " Stone Age ; " from this, accord- 
ing to some development hypothesis, he is supposed to 
emerge, and gradually to rise until he arrives at the 
' ' Bronze Age ; ' ' then again he progresses, and finally 
arrives at the '^ Iron Age," where he is supposed to become 
somewhat civilized, and in reality a man ; for before this 
he was nothing more than a wild beast. And here it is, 
we suppose, that the Scriptural account of the race is al- 
lowed to begin. 

According, then, to this account, man's origin is buried 
in the dark obscurity of the infinitely remote geological 
ages of the past. How low down in the scale of being man 
was, at his creation, it is impossible precisely to gather 
from this account. Darwin, and his school, logically 
place it in the ape ; or, going back further (with Professor 
Huxley), place man's origin ''in the shapeless mass of 
protoplasm." Man, then, beginning with "protoplasm," 
after myriads of ages of progress through the ape, &c., 
emerges into the wild beastism of the Stone Age ; passing 
through this, he emerges into the Bronze Age ; and, in 
time, passing through this, he emerges into the Iron Age. 
M. Figuier, in his work entitled ''Primitive Man," gives 
a most perspicuous account of this truly mythical progress 
of the human race, presenting us with pictures of man's 
appearance and general condition during each of these 
periods. 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 23/ 

Now this scientific account of man is in conflict with 
that of Revelation. According to Revelation, man does 
not begin *' in the shapeless mass of protoplasm ; " nor in 
the ape; nor in wild beastism. "And God said, Let us 
make man in our image after our likeness, and let them 
have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl 
of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, 
and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God 
created he him, male and female created he them." Man 
was made, then, originally in God's own image, and given 
dominion over all the earth. Evidently, Adam was not a 
wild beast; and if men have been found in such a condition, 
it is because they have retrogressed, and not that they have . 
progressed. The development hypothesis is in conflict 
with the facts of Scripture. No doubt, man, in many parts 
of the world, in times past and at present, as in Africa, is 
but little removed from the wild beast ; but he has brought 
himself to this condition. In such cases we have before 
us not progress, but degradation; we have in it, the evi- 
dence of sin and the curse. Man began with being in the 
image of God, according to the Scriptures, — a sinless, 
noble, commanding creature. 

Again, so far from there being any such gradual progress, 
as from the "stone" to the "bronze" and "iron ages; " 
so far from this being a fact in the historic development of 
the race ; the Scripture tells us, in speaking of the very 
first set of men, of Tubal Cain the son of Lamech, the son 
of Methusael, the son of Mehujael, the great-grandson of 
Cain, that he was " an instructor of every artificer in brass 
and iron." As to caves : " Jabal was the father of such as 
dwell in tents and have cattle." As to culture : " Jubal was 
the father of all such as handle the organ and the harp." 
This certainly gives us a very different impression of man's 



238 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

condition, in his first stage of development, from that given 
us in the pages of M. Figuier. The two accounts are in 
conflict ; the one takes it for granted that man begins in 
*' protoplasm," or in the ape, or in wild beastism; the 
other, the Scriptural account, makes man at his origin a 
noble, intelligent, sinless being, made in the image of God. 
His origin is the highest point of the natural development 
of the race ; subsequent history gives us a lapse, retrogres- 
sion, human degradation, more or less retarded and re- 
strained by an overruling Providence. The degradation of 
Canaan, he being under a special curse, was to be the greatest. 

These are vital questions to our race, questions on which 
it is all-important we should have some settled views; 
otherwise we shall be plunged in a sea of idle speculation 
and doubt. Moreover, Christianity is vitally connected 
with them ; St. Paul, St. Peter, Christ himself, the whole 
New Testament, indorses the Old. Christianity rests upon 
the Old Testament as its foundation. Christ and Adam 
are, according to the Scriptures, the turning-points in 
mail's history. Christianity must therefore share the fate 
of the Old Testament. The time has come, then, when we 
must take our stand. Every thoughtful mind is necessi- 
tated, by the present state of things, to look into these ques- 
tions, and to settle them personally for himself. One thing 
is certain — either this whole account of creation and of 
antediluvian man is God's truth, or it is an unsound myth. 
If untrue, let it go into the abyss where all such things be- 
long ; let us cease to teach our children what is untrue ; 
let us do away with the solemn farce of reading it in our 
churches. Are we ready for this ? 

The general impression made upon every candid mind 
in reading this History, is that it is inspired and the truth. 
'' Never man wrote like this man." It bears the stamp of 
God upon it. And this internal evidence is to us the most 



WHAT IS RELIGION? -239 

convincing. It appeals at once to our consciousness, and 
at once we feel its power, that it is God's word. The author 
of this History is evidently in a peculiar position j he speaks 
with the utmost assurance of God's thoughts, and feelings, 
and counsels, which could not but have been within the very 
circle of the Godhead itself. '' And God said. Let us make 
man after our own image, and in our own likeness." Now, 
how could any mortal know of God's counsels within him- 
self? Again, ''It repented the Lord that He had made 
man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart." How 
could any mortal historian make such a statement ? Who- 
ever wrote these things seems to have been admitted into 
the innermost confidence, the very bosom of the Godhead. 
He speaks like an amanuensis writing at the dictation of 
God himself, who speaks of Himself in the third person. 
It seems, therefore, to be God's own account of the mat- 
ter. Certainly, no man could of himself have been ac- 
quainted with the facts of creation ; they *are necessarily, 
humanly speaking, pre-historic. The creation, necessarily, 
from the nature of the case, must be a revelation. If it is 
not, then it must be the mere figment of some poetic imagi- 
nation, the dream of some poet author, who profanely 
dares to propound it as God's truth. 

The issue has now, in this age, been formally made. 
Each one of us, in the quiet forum of our own minds, must 
examine into the question and decide for ourselves. Ra- 
pidly it is being decided by the Church and world at large, 
and perhaps by the next century will be settled, and appear 
in the form of a current belief. Let one even now attempt 
to feel certain as to any of these facts, and he will find how 
far, already, the current has borne him. Few dare now to 
assert the universality of the Deluge, and fewer believe it. 
Already confidence in the Scriptures has been sadly shaken, 
and our prophets know it not. They know not that they 



240 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

themselves are fast falling into the ranks of infidelity, and 
are being borne along by its current. 

Now the Scriptures are the instrumentality by means of 
which God gives man a religious education and regenerates 
him. When He takes a portion of the human race, and 
brings it into a near relationship with respect to himself, 
He puts this book into their hands, and bids them read, 
learn, and inwardly digest it. Now if these Scriptures are 
to be man's God-appointed teacher, is it not but reasonable 
to suppose that they will contain the truth ? Certainly, on 
all important points. If the Scriptures are false, then in- 
deed are we in a sad plight. We are all in the dark as to 
God, the world, and ourselves. Like the heathen nations, 
we must betake ourselves to speculation and conjure up a 
cosmogony and some scheme which will account for the 
origin and condition of man. If the Scriptures are false, 
we are without a guide, and the whole apparatus for the 
religious education and regeneration of man is a failure. If 
we must distrust our teacher in the very beginning, evi- 
dently there is no telling where we can trust Him. Our 
faith in the whole system is shaken ; we know not what to 
believe ; we know not when the Scriptures speak the truth, 
and when they are false. The end is inevitable ; we will 
discard them utterly, and must teach ourselves, must de- 
pend upon our own resources, upon the wild confusion of 
half-constructed sciences, upon the oracular deliverances of 
a host of half-informed scientists. We are to leave, in fine, 
living waters, and betake ourselves to broken cisterns. We 
must lie down involved in Stygian darkness, without hope, 
without God in the world. Such, men of the nineteenth 
century, is the inevitable doom awaiting us, the fate attend- 
ant upon tampering with and distrusting the utterances of 
the infallible Word of God. We have yielded too long to 
these insidious assaults and underminings of a science man- 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 24I 

aged by ungodly men. It is time for us to man our guns, to 
get ready for action — the enemy is now upon us in earnest. 

The dark shadow of infidelity which has so long rested 
upon Germany, creeping on slowly, has finally settled down 
upon us. The eclipse of faith has begun, and perhaps it 
may be a total one. This alone supports us, that an eclipse 
is never of long duration. ''The night cometh, but also 
the morning." Already the shadows of an ominous penum- 
bra have settled down upon us. Germany is beginning to 
emerge ; but the shadow, ominously creeping on, is now 
enveloping us. Germany is metaphysical and critical. 
The tempter therefore approached her, clad in transcen- 
dentalism. The New Testament was the point of attack, 
and Christ and Christianity finally disappeared in a myth. 
We, true to our English relationship, are scientific and 
practical. The tempter approaches us wrapped in the 
mantle of a pretentious science. The Old Testament is the 
point of attack, and that, under his insidious assaults, is fast, 
like the New Testament in Germany, vanishing in a myth. 
The object aimed at in both cases is the same, namely, 
infidelity ; to engender a disbelief in and distrust of the 
Word of God. 

Now, without the Scriptures, salvation is impossible. 
Man and God are two realities, but man cannot know the 
one or the other, but through the instrumentality of these 
Scriptures. Self-consciousness, in its relation to sin, must 
remain dormant until aroused by the power of the Word. 
The true God cannot be known savingly by man of him- 
self. The future too must remain an enigma, without such 
light as is shed upon the subject through the Scriptures. 
To distrust them is then fatal, it is the greatest misfortune 
that can befall the race. Science, then, managed as it is by 
ungodly men, is the greatest danger that besets this age. It 
aims at overturning our faith in Revelation. What, for in- 
21 Q 



242 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

Stance, is the sentence of science upon this utterance of 
Scripture: ''Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day 
when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the chil- 
dren of Israel ; and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand 
*thou still upon Gideon; and thou. Moon, in the valley of 
Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until 
the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is 
not this written in the book of Jasher ? So the sun stood 
still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down 
about a whole day. And there was no day like that before 
it, or after it, that the Lord had hearkened unto the voice 
of a man ; for the Lord fought for Israel. ' ' Nothing can 
be more solemnly affirmed than this. Revelation is com- 
mitted to it. It is referred to again in Isaiah xxviii. 21. 

What says science to the standing-still of the sun and 
moon for a whole day ? And again to the same point is 
Isaiah xxxviii. 8: "Behold, I will bring again the shadow 
of the degrees, which is gone down in the sun-dial of Ahaz, 
ten degrees backwards. So the sun returned ten degrees, 
by which degrees it was gone down." What says science 
to this ? And is not the creation of the world in six days 
just as possible as either of these events ? The truth is, 
the Bible is a book of miracles; if you doubt one, you 
must doubt all, and discard the whole Bible. Science tells 
us it is utterly impossible that the sun and moon should 
stand still, or that the sun should go backwards ; but Rev- 
elation tells us that both these things have happened. We 
must choose between the two, and be either scientific infi- 
dels or unscientific believers. St. Paul saw this state of 
things ahead of him, and he warns us, i Timothy vi. 20 : 
''Avoid profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of 
science, falsely so called; " and again, "Neither give heed 
to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, 
rather than godly edifying which is in faith." Of course, 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 243 

this advice will only apply to believers, and it is very evi- 
dent that they are now in need of this warning. All of us, 
after all, are but borne along in the current of the spirit of 
the age. Like mariners far out on the ocean, drifting along 
upon some oceanic current, we are borne onward by the 
spirit of the age, not knowing where we are or whither we 
are going. There is a providence of evil as well as of good — 
a vast undercurrent of spiritual forces, bearing man uncon- 
sciously along upon its surface. The spirit of the age is 
this providence of evil. No doubt God overrules it for 
good ; but it is grand and awful in its movement, and car- 
ries man floating upon it, like a feather upon the surface 
of a torrent. We, as Christians, find ourselves floating along 
with this current; few are conscious of their situation. 
The watchmen are mute, and fail to cry out the hour of 
the night. The current is rapidly nearing the vortex of 
infidelity. It becomes us to recover ourselves before it is 
too late. 

The signs of the times demand of Christians that they 
should stand to their colors. Christian men must hold 
themselves aloof from all these unprofitable questions of 
science ; they must withdraw from this field, and confine 
themselves to the Scriptures. They must, in the face of 
science, hold to the text of the Scriptures. 

We must take these statements as they stand, and if there 
be some mystery about them, we must in faith leave it so, 
knowing that God has purposely so stated it, and we must 
wait for another sphere of existence to have all difficulties 
cleared up. Alas ! it is mournful to see already how far we 
have drifted. Already we can hear in communions which 
regard themselves as orthodox, ministers of the gospel 
flatly declaring that the Deluge was not universal, that the 
world was myriads of years in being created. This, in the 
very teeth of the volume which they have sworn to respect 



244 ' WHAT IS RELIGION? 

and defend, as the very infallible Word of God. Behold 
this sign of the times ! Whither are we drifting, O men, 
O Christian men of the period ? Into the abyss — the vor- 
tex of infidelity ! And O whither, then ? Distrust, disbe- 
lieve the Word of God, and where are we ? Adrift ! afloat 
upon the wild sea of perdition, without hope, without God 
in the world ! Christian men, awake, arouse yourselves to 
the peril of your situation, and gird yourselves for the con- 
flict ! Stand to your Bibles, or you are lost. '^ For all flesh 
is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. 
The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away. 
But the Word of the Lord endureth for ever. ' ' 



CONCLUSION. 

IN opposition to the spirit of the age, we protest that 
there are realities besides those which the senses reveal 
to us. We do not impugn the reality of the one ; but we 
do insist upon that of the other. Just as certainly as na- 
ture exists, does God. We know of the one through con- 
sciousness, and exactly through the same means do we 
know of the other. Theology is just as much a science as 
is geology, for there is a God, and there is a knowledge of 
Him. There is something, we say, besides this world ; 
besides the whole universe, the human consciousness de- 
mands it. Religion is a reality. The fact of its existence 
in any of its forms is a standing proof that there is some- 
thing in human nature which demands it. Christianity, 
too, is a reality. As revealed in the Word of God, it is a 
Divine power, a spiritual force introduced by Christ, and 
now operating in the historic development of the race. 



WHAT IS RELIGION? 245 

The Strongest argument for the Divine nature of the Chris- 
tian religion is to be found in the personal experience of 
the believer. The Gospel of Christ is the power of God 
*'unto every one that belieyeth." The Apostles knew this. 
Christianity was to them not a mere intellectual dogma ; it 
was a spiritual power. They were convinced of the deity 
of Christ, not only by His external, but also by His in- 
ternal miracles. Regeneration or conversion is the greatest 
of all miracles, and this miracle takes place in the con- 
sciousness of every one that believes. Every believer, 
therefore, has an experience of the power of Christ and of 
His Gospel, and knows that Christ is God and that Chris- 
tianity is Divine. Faith in Christ, as offered for the life 
of the world, has restored the believer, heavy-laden with 
guilt, to a state of conscious peace with God, and to a state 
of filial trust and love. Christ's flesh and blood have 
proved both food indeed and drink indeed. Consciously, 
too, Christ dwells in the heart of the believer by His 
Spirit. He feels that, in his consciousness, he is a new 
creature ; that ^'the law of the spirit of life has made him 
free from the law of sin and death." The Spirit of God 
witnesses with his spirit that he is a son of God, and here- 
by he knows that he dwells in God and that God dwells in 
him by the Spirit which Christ has given him. The in- 
dwelling of the Spirit is a conscious fact in the soul of the 
regenerated believer. 

Therefore, inasmuch as through faith in the Gospel the 
soul has attained peace with God and the gift of the Spirit, 
it knows through its own experience that Christianity is 
what it professes to be — ^'the power of God unto salva- 
tion." Such proof is, of course, possible only to the be- 
liever. None can feel the weight of it but those who per- 
sonally believe. But, then, when a man once has it, none 
can take it away from him. It gives him no argument 



246 WHAT IS RELIGION? 

wherewith to meet the cavils of the unbeliever; but for 
himself he knows — the evidence is himself. Like the 
blind man restored to sight, one thing he knows : ' ' whereas 
he was blind, now he sees; " whereas he was weary and 
heavy-laden with the burden of his guilt, now he has found 
rest, and enjoys peace and joy in the Holy Ghost; whereas 
sin had the dominion over him, now, through the grace of 
God, though sorely pressed, he can stand. Thus he has 
the witness in himself that Christ is the Saviour, and that 
His Gospel is verily the power of God unto salvation. 

There are realities besides what the senses reveal to us ; 
there are inward facts as well as outward. There is such a 
thing in human nature as sin, as remorse, as guilt. There 
is in the soul, in its very consciousness, the tremendous 
reality of a God, and there is such a thing as the fear of 
God in the soul — the fear of death and of a future judg- 
ment. There is such a fact in human nature as prayer and 
as sacrifice. All these are facts just as certainly as that there 
are rocks and metals and gases, and other things that are 
seen. It is time that we should become aware of the exist- 
ence of this class of facts. The attention of this nineteenth 
century has been too long engrossed with the things that 
are seen. It is time for us to turn our attention to the eter- 
nal. Let us 'Mook, not at the things which are seen, but 
at the things which are not seen ; for the things which are 
seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are 
eternal." 



THE END. 



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